Nanoha Genesis Evangelion
by ProfMorbius
Summary: A crossover of Nanoha and Evangelion. Features Evangelion plot with mostly Nanoha characters.
1. Adam's First Child

**Chapter 1: Adam's First Child**

In the month of July in the year 2015, something alien awakened.

It had slept for years uncounted since being ripped prematurely from its Mother's womb, buried beneath miles of ice and stone. Left undisturbed, it might have slumbered eternally. But fifteen years ago, something had changed. It had heard its Mother scream in its mind; then the ice had burned and the stone had boiled in the heart an explosion of unimaginable power. The ferocity of the blast had shifted the planet on its axis. Every living thing on the continent had died instantly.

The alien had hardly been disturbed. It was not, in the conventional sense, a living being.

But its Mother's voice had echoed in its mind, and it had slowly begun to rouse itself from its long dormancy. Now, fifteen years later, it was fully awake. It manifested a body around its Core, condensing magic into physical form to serve as a container for its consciousness. Then, driven by a deep instinctual urge, it began to swim. A visceral longing that it could barely put a name to called it northwest, through the New Dead Sea that had flooded the corpse of the Antarctic continent, and into the Pacific.

The thing's migration did not go unnoticed. A flotilla of ships canvassing the New Dead Sea recorded it on their sonar: a massive object, vaguely humanoid in shape, moving under its own power. They fired off a flurry of alarming messages to the UN, warning of the possible appearance of a being similar to the one that had devastated the world fifteen years ago. Then, on a secret channel, they transmitted a far more meaningful message to their true masters: "A child of Adam has awakened. Alert NERV to prepare for battle."

A force under UN command encountered the thing first. Three _Harushio_-class submarines, sleek 77-meter long war machines, intercepted it as it approached the coast of Japan. The submarines converged on their target with deadly intent, launching torpedoes the moment they were in range. Three Type 89 torpedoes, each carrying 267 kilograms of high explosive, homed in on the target and detonated.

They failed to so much as scratch it.

Moments from impact, a wall of blue light sprang forth between the torpedoes and the alien. This glowing circle of magic energy absorbed the explosions without difficulty, completely buffering the alien from the blasts. The submarines did not see this fantastical event; their senses limited to sonar, they could only detect that their attack had failed. They would never have a chance to figure out why.

Though conventional weapons posed no more threat to the alien than the bite of an ant did to a human being, it recognized that it was under attack and responded accordingly. Brilliant light burned for a moment in its hollow eye sockets, then lanced forwards. The submarines' metal hulls provided no defense against this magical assault. Steel vaporized in an instant, unable to put up the slightest resistance to the arcane energies wielded by the alien.

Three pillars of light erupted from the shattered wrecks, piercing the water's surface and stabbing into the sky. A smaller beam spread out perpendicular to each shaft; to the observers in the spy planes flying over the ocean, the explosions resembled Roman crosses.

Had there been any observers left under the water, they would have seen that the blast was symmetrical, extending below the remains of the submarines as it did above; the total shape was that of an archaic Cross of Lorraine. But no such observers remained; there was only the alien, swimming on towards its destination.

* * *

Old Tokyo had been destroyed fifteen years ago, during the chaos following the catastrophe now known as Second Impact. Replacing it was the city of Tokyo-3, built on the site of the city formerly known as Hakone. This site was not chosen at random. Beneath Tokyo-3 was a massive, perfectly-spherical chamber 13.75 kilometers in diameter: the GeoFront. Much of the GeoFront had become filled with dirt and rubble over the millions of millennia since its formation in the days when the Earth was young; only a small dome-shaped portion at the top remained clear. This dome served as the headquarters of NERV, the organization that had been established for purpose of securing humanity's future.

A black pyramid stood on the surface of the ground within the GeoFront. Within lay Central Dogma, the heart of NERV. Here were built the MAGI, three organic supercomputers which planned the future of mankind; and here lived the person charged with overseeing their mission during the coming trials.

The mood was tense in the command center. NERV was run out of a room with a three-tiered structure. On the lowest level, the MAGI churned in their boxes, sifting through vast amounts of data in their quest to find the perfect course of action. On the middle deck, two men and a woman sat at computer stations. They were the technicians charged with feeding data to the MAGI and interpreting the output. Their fingers danced over their keyboards as new information poured in. And on the final level, above and behind the technicians, two people watched the large holographic display that showed the enemy's movement. This woman and man were the commander and vice-commander of NERV, two of the most powerful people on the planet.

Commander Precia Testarossa was a middle-aged woman. Her dark hair covered the left side of her face. No emotion showed in her dark eyes as she regarded the information on the display; Precia was a woman who rarely expressed what she was thinking. By contrast, the dismay of the man standing next to her was evident. Vice Commander Kozo Fuyutsuki was an elderly man with greying hair; his eyes darted back and forth as he took in the information on display.

"And so the first child of Adam has awakened." Precia said. "Now NERV will face its first true test."

"It's unfortunate that the UN forces engaged the target first." Fuyutsuki said. "Conventional weapons are useless against Angels; their deaths were for nothing."

Precia clasped her hands.

"To the contrary, the loss of the submarines suits our purposes nicely." she stated. "The sooner the UN realizes all of their weapons amount to nothing in the face of the Angels, the sooner we will be given full authority over anti-Angel operations."

Fuyutsuki sighed unhappily. "How many lives do you think that understanding will cost?"

Precia ignored him, instead turning her attention to the technicians.

"What do the MAGI say?" she asked.

First Lieutenant Makoto Hyuga, a slightly nerdy young man with glasses, was the first to respond.

"The MAGI have completed analysis of the Barrier deployed by the target in the combat against the submarines. There's no doubt; the target is an Angel." he said.

First Lieutenant Shigeru Aoba, a young man with long hair spoke next.

"Target, designation _Sachiel_, is approaching the ruins of Old Tokyo. UN forces are gathering there in preparation to intercept."

Finally, First Lieutenant Maya Ibuki, a petite young woman who sat on a pillow to reach her control panel more comfortably, responded.

"The MAGI are recommending that your daughter also be deployed to intercept at Old Tokyo." she said. "If combat with the Angel occurs in the ruins, collateral damage will be minimized."

"Arrange for high-speed transport of Fate to the combat zone." Precia commanded.

She leaned back in her chair.

"Sachiel." Precia's face was inscrutable. "Show me the power of Adam's progeny."

* * *

Amidst the half-submerged ruins of Old Tokyo, the Angel called Sachiel surfaced. For the first time, the Angel could be seen clearly by the forces arrayed against it. It was humanoid in appearance, but only vaguely; its limbs were unnaturally spindly for its size. It had no head or neck, its face instead appearing to be a mask-like bony protrusion in the front between its shoulders. Several other bone formations gave the appearance of pads over its shoulders and of a rib cage enclosing its chest. Visible beneath the ribs was a crystalline red sphere that seemed to shine with internal radiance. The rest of Sachiel's body was blue-black and blubbery in appearance. Gill-like structures fibrillated on the Angel's thighs, though they existed only out of a vestigial adaptive instinct rather than any actual need for respiration.

The military forces that had been gathered in Old Tokyo wasted no time scrutinizing the finer details of the monster as it rose from the water. They had been informed by NERV that this creature, this Angel, was capable of causing a repeat of the devastation wrought fifteen years previously. Memories of Second Impact were still vivid in the soldiers' minds: many of them had fought in the numerous wars that ensued when the world was plunged into chaos following the event. Even now, a decade and a half later, the economies and infrastructures of the world's former superpowers still had not fully recovered. The message from NERV had been clear: the Angel must be stopped at any cost. The world would not survive a Third Impact. And so they did not hesitate on regarding this otherworldly opponent, but immediately opened fire with everything they had.

The missiles struck first. They were of all different makes and models, having been launched from the planes of dozens of different countries in the UN's coalition force. Sachiel was temporarily obscured by a cloud of flame and smoke as the missiles impacted him from all sides. When the smoke cleared, Sachiel was unmarked. A large glowing magic circle had inscribed itself in the air around the Angel, intercepting the missiles before impact. The blue magic had soaked up the explosions effortlessly; there was no sign that the defensive barrier had been even slightly weakened by the attack. Sachiel, obviously unconcerned by the assault, began striding forwards through the half-sunken city; the magic circle faded, its purpose served.

Helicopters attacked next. They spun around the Angel like flies, unleashing a constant stream of bullets from their guns. The defensive magic circle immediately reasserted itself, demonstrating no difficulty blocking this new method of attack. Though the circle hovered in front of Sachiel, it appeared to provide a sphere of total protection; when the helicopters fired at the Angel from behind, blue sparks erupted in the air where the machine gun bullets struck an invisible barrier of magic.

Sachiel paused now, seeming to consider whether these human weapons were significant enough to warrant a response; then, with no warning, it swung out its arms and swatted the helicopters out of the sky. The pilots had kept what they thought was a safe distance during the attack, but Sachiel's limbs proved unexpectedly elastic as it stretched them out to reach the choppers. Those which survived the first swings attempted to flee, but to no avail: Sachiel extended its limbs still further to snatch them out of the sky. Then, all immediate resistance having been quashed, it resumed its single-minded march towards Tokyo-3.

Not far from Sachiel, standing on the roof of one of the ruined buildings of Old Tokyo, was someone who seemed quite out of place in this war zone. It was a young girl, no more than ten years of age. She had exceptionally long golden hair, which she wore tied in twintails.

Her name was Fate.

Fate regarded the monstrous Angel with unflinching eyes, then touched a hand to her chest.

"Bardiche," she said. "Set up."

A yellow magic circle expanded across the ground beneath Fate's feet, then magic spilled from her chest and wrapped itself around her. The magic was jagged and wild, crawling over the surface of her body like bolts of electricity. However, after a moment and in response to her thoughts, the energy settled into a solid form: a battle uniform consisting of a black one-piece with a cape. Once her clothing was complete, the magic condensed itself into her hand and began forming itself into a weapon. A sleek mechanical device assembled itself, an axe-like weapon based on the antique Russian bardiche.

Her transformation completed, Fate stepped forward off of the building. She dropped down towards the water, then her magic flared once more.

"Blitz Rush." Fate said.

Abruptly, she wasn't falling; she was flying. Fate skimmed the surface of the water and rocketed towards Sachiel. The Angel reacted to her approach and raised its defensive circle; Fate adjusted her speed, bent her legs as she collided with the barrier, and then backflipped off of it to hover a short distance in front of Sachiel.

"Photon Lancer." Fate invoked.

Energy gathered around her, converging onto four points. Each point swelled into a sphere, a crackling ball of compressed lightning. A thought from Fate sent all four rocketing into the Angel's barrier. The reaction was spectacular; the magic field which had so easily withstood conventional weapons visibly wavered upon contact with Fate's magic. The lightning balls burned brightly against flickering shield; then the Angel's barrier shattered. Three of the spheres winked out, their energy expended, but the fourth shot forwards and burned a neat hole in the Angel's left shoulder, below the bony guard. A moment later, a thick jet of blue blood spewed out.

The injury hampered the Angel for only a moment; seconds later, the blood flow had already stopped and the wound was closing as new flesh grew into the hole. But by then, Fate was already in motion. She flew forwards, past the boundary of the now-broken barrier, then made a hard right and accelerated towards the Angel's left elbow.

"Arc Saber."

A crescent blade of golden light extended from Bardiche as Fate flew past Sachiel's elbow, then the lower part of the Angel's arm separated and plunged into the turbulent water below. Blood jetted from the stump for a few seconds until the flesh began to heal. An entire limb would take longer to regrow, however, and Fate was still on the move. Sachiel swatted at her with its remaining hand, but Fate nimbly danced through the fingers. She brought herself over the Angel's arm, then dropped down to Sachiel's chest. Within its bony rib cage, the Angel's red gem of a Core glittered.

Fate drew back Bardiche, but stopped when she saw light beginning to gather in the Angel's hollow eye sockets. Fate hurled herself backwards just as Sachiel fired an intense beam of power. The magic missed Fate and struck the ocean below, which began to glow and boil violently.

"Defenser!" Fate shouted.

A magic circle formed in front of her as a pillar-shaped explosion erupted from the water below, splitting into a cross as it rose. A shockwave buffeted Fate, but her shield easily held against the indirect hit. Fate leveled Bardiche at Sachiel's face, and a second magic circle formed. Energy swelled in front of it, straining for release.

"Thunder Smash!"

Sachiel was gathering more energy in its eyes, trying to unleash a second attack, but Fate was faster. Her gathered energy exploded forwards, forming itself into an attack like an immense bolt of guided lightning. The beam attack struck the Angel directly in its mask-like face. Flesh boiled and bone melted under the ferocity of the assault, and the blazing lights died in their sockets as the Angel's mask cracked.

Now Fate resumed her originally interrupted attack, diving down to Sachiel's chest while re-invoking Arc Saber. Fate swung the blade upwards and sliced off one of the protective ribs, exposing more of the glittering red Core. She drew back the electric blade, prepared to drive it into the shining crystal, but Sachiel reacted defensively by drawing its arms in towards its chest. The Angel's right hand was spread out for an open-handed swat, like a human might swat a fly; its left arm still ended at a stump at the wrist, but the forearm alone was still larger than Fate. She was forced to push away again to avoid being crushed, sliding through the gap between the Angel's arms as it drew them to its chest.

Fate aimed Bardiche, ready to fire another Thunder Smash, when suddenly there was a great ripping sound as the flesh of the Angel's torso was torn apart from within. Sachiel's cracked and broken face mask was pushed aside by a second mask that erupted from beneath it, like a permanent tooth pushing out its baby predecessor. This new mask was whole and undamaged, and it already had the lights of a prepared attack blazing in its sockets.

"Defenser!" Fate barely had time to scream.

The beam attack hit her full on. Fate's protective shield had earlier held up to the secondary shockwave of the Angel's attack, but a direct hit was in another league entirely. The barrier held for only moments before shattering and letting through the remaining force of the blast. White-hot energy closed around Fate's Barrier Jacket, the uniform she had made through her magic; then that too was ripped away and Fate was flung backwards amidst a storm of fire.

* * *

"God have mercy on us," Fuyutsuki said as the results of the battle arrived at the command center.

Precia stared wordlessly at the holographic display, hands clasped. Her face displayed no emotion.

"The target has resumed course for Tokyo-3." Shigeru reported. "If its speed remains constant, it will arrive within four hours."

"We've been contacted by the UN forces." Makoto said. "They say they're planning—"

"Commander!" Maya interrupted. "I've just received a report — your daughter is alive! She's been recovered from the sea by a UN helicopter."

"What is her condition?" Precia asked.

"She's unconscious... there don't seem to be any internal injuries, but she's been severely burned. They say... they say she might not make it." Maya said.

"That won't do. Her loss would be unacceptable at this juncture." Precia said neutrally. "Instruct them to have a high-speed transport bring her to the GeoFront immediately. And inform Dr. Akagi to be ready to begin treatment as soon as Fate arrives."

"Ah, that's right! Sempai will know what to do!" Maya said happily. "She's been working really hard on the Devices lately, finding different ways their magic can be used. If she can access Bardiche, she can instruct it to use its magic to heal Fate. That should—"

"Correct, Lieutenant Ibuki." Precia said, cutting her off. "Fate has received severe injuries before, during training, and Dr. Akagi's ministrations have always been exceptionally effective. As such, there is no need to speak further on the matter. Lieutenant Hyuga, you were saying?"

"Uh, right." Makoto said. "The UN is planning to deploy an N-2 mine against the Angel. Given the time necessary to prepare the bomb, they won't be able to deploy it until the Angel is right outside Tokyo-3."

"They'd use an N-2 mine that close to the city?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"MAGI calculate an 85% chance the bomb will be completely ineffective, and a 14.99% chance that it will only briefly hamper the Angel." Makoto added.

"Fools will be fools. Let them use their toy." Precia said. "And after the world watches their best attempt fail, it will be NERV that carries the day. That should serve us well in the court of public opinion."

"You plan to use the second candidate, then?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"Captain Harlaown has already been dispatched to pick her up." Precia said. "Even if the N-2 mine has no effect, there should be sufficient time to prepare her."

"She's had no training." Fuyutsuki protested.

"I have confidence she will perform." Precia said. "Her test results show a near perfect compatibility with Raising Heart; she should be able to bond with it far more quickly than Fate did with Bardiche."

"To think... the future of mankind now rests in the hands of one ten-year-old girl." Fuyutsuki said.

"We'll just have to hope she lives up to expectations." Precia commented.


	2. A Young Girl Becomes A Legend

**Chapter 2: A Young Girl Becomes A Legend**

Nanoha Takamachi, ten year old, looked around in wonder at the buildings of Tokyo-3. It was her first time being in a city of this size; her family had not lost everything in Second Impact, as some unfortunate souls had, but they had not been particularly rich, either. Having grown up in the suburbs, the towering spires of Tokyo-3 are a new sight to her, and she marveled at them as she waited for Captain Harlaown to pick her up.

Nanoha was an energetic girl with curly reddish hair. Her life so far had been fairly typical. She had done well in school, though not exceptionally so, and gotten on well with other girls of her age. She was somewhat fight-prone, displaying a tendency to resolve conflict with fisticuffs rather than words, but this was put down as a mere tomboyish streak. Overall, there had been nothing remarkable about her.

Everything had changed recently when she got her first period. Her school doctor had performed some blood tests, a procedure that had become ordinary in the years since Second Impact. Unusually, however, he had then referred her to a team of specialists who performed a battery of increasingly intensive tests, growing more excited as each new result came in. Finally, the offer from NERV had come in.

It was an offer too good to turn down. Nanoha would be brought to Tokyo-3. All her expenses would be paid: food, lodging, school. She would be guaranteed admission and full scholarship to the college of her choice when she grew up. All she needed to do was a little work for NERV helping safeguard humanity from another catastrophe like Second Impact. Granted, it was kept a little vague what exactly that would be; but Nanoha couldn't refuse such an exciting offer, and had accepted with her family's blessing.

Nanoha looked down again at the letter she'd received. The train had taken her this far; now, according to the instructions, Captain Lindy Harlaown of NERV would pick her up and bring her the rest of the way to NERV's secret headquarters. Though the existence of NERV was public knowledge, the actual details of its operations were strictly classified, including the location of their command center. The letter included a picture of Lindy; it showed a bright young woman with teal hair, standing at attention in a military uniform.

There was something unusual about Tokyo-3. Nanoha had heard that it was home to a large number of NERV employees and their families, and had expected to arrive to find it bustling with activity. Instead, she seemed to be the only one out on the streets. Even the train which delivered her had carried no other passengers, and had turned right back around and headed away after dropping her off.

Nanoha was interrupted from her thoughts by the sound of an approaching car. It pulled to a stop at the curb in front of Nanoha, and the woman from the photograph stepped out.

"Nanoha Takamachi?" the woman asked.

"Yes, that's me. Are you Miss Harlaown?" Nanoha asked.

"You can call me Lindy. I'll be your guardian while you're in Tokyo-3." Lindy said.

She opened the car door for Nanoha, and Nanoha climbed in. Lindy wasted no time in getting back into the driver's seat and starting the car's engine.

"Sorry I don't have time for a more leisurely introduction, but we have a bit of an emergency right now. I need to get you to NERV right away." Lindy said.

"What kind of emergency?" Nanoha asked.

"You mean you haven't—" Lindy began, then pulled a face. "The UN must still be trying to keep everything under wraps. Fat chance of that anymore. Even if they pressure all the official news sources, the _Angel_ is going to be all over the Internet by tomorrow."

Though Lindy spoke most of the sentence in fluent Japanese, she slipped into British-accented English for one word.

"Angel." Nanoha rolled the word around in her mind, trying to recall her English lessons. "You mean _tenshi_ — heavenly messenger?"

"Oh, sorry. The Japanese word would be _shito_ — apostle; one dedicated to a holy cause." Lindy clarified. "That's what we call the enemy."

"Enemy?" Nanoha asked, trying to keep up.

"We're coming to the top of a hill; you should be able to see it from there. Look left — yes, there!"

Lindy brought the car to a stop as Nanoha pressed her face to her window. Past the buildings of Tokyo-3, she could see something stalking over the forested hills and towards the city: a two-faced giant of black flesh and protruding bone. Nanoha gasped in awe at this incredible sight.

"That is the Angel Sachiel." Lindy told her. "It is coming to destroy us. The only way to stop it—"

She broke off as a low-flying plane passed overhead, heading straight for the giant Angel.

"They aren't really going to— Oh, they are! Get down!" Lindy commanded.

Lindy ducked down in her seat, at the same time grabbing Nanoha's arm and pulling her down as well. A few seconds later, and there was a sound so massive that all of the car's windows shattered. A few seconds after the rain of glass had ceased, Nanoha dared to raise her head above the dashboard to see what was happening. A cloud of white-hot flame was rising from where the Angel had stood, expanding and cooling as it rose, gradually forming the unmistakable shape of a mushroom cloud.

"A nuke!" Nanoha gasped in alarm.

"It's an N-2 mine. Non-Nuclear." Lindy said through gritted teeth. "The UN must be crazy to use one this close to the city, though; that'll have given the GeoFront a good shaking. And it's not like conventional weapons can harm the Angels in any case."

It seemed impossible to Nanoha that anything could've survived the blazing inferno unleashed by the detonation of the N-2 mine. But even as she watched, the Angel began to walk forwards out of the blast. A circle of blue light shimmered in the air in front of it, and there was a visible sphere outlined around it: a visible divide between the superheated air outside the shield and the protected area within.

"C'mon." Lindy said, restarting the car. "There's no time to waste."

She resumed driving. Nanoha continued looking at the strange, otherworldly Angel for as long as possible. It was as tall as the buildings of Tokyo-3, and so she maintained a good view of it until Lindy drove the car into a tunnel. At the end of the tunnel was a metal platform, which began to descend as soon as the car was parked upon it. Looking out the broken windows on both sides of the car, Nanoha realized that they were in fact on a giant escalator.

"Did NERV build all this?" she asked in awe.

"Not exactly." Lindy answered. "It was only after NERV set up headquarters in the GeoFront that is turned to military purposes, but the site itself has been occupied since long ago. Archaeological evidence suggests that it was used as a religious site as far back as the Kofun Period. Some people even claim that one of the mausoleums discovered here is the true burial site of Ojin Tenno..."

Lindy rolled her eyes; apparently she herself did not believe this.

"In any case, for most of modern history the GeoFront was privately owned by SEELE. After Second Impact, Japan publically voiced support for the growing strength of the UN but formed NERV in secret. The new government, with SEELE's backing, decided to place its headquarters in the GeoFront; Tokyo-3 was constructed above to house all of NERV's employees and their families."

Nanoha, who had been desperately trying to keep up with Lindy's rapid speech, finally admitted defeat.

"I'm sorry Lindy, but I don't understand. What's the GeoFront? And what's SEELE?"

"SEELE is a conspiracy." Lindy said. "Well... that makes it sound more sinister than it really is. It's just a group of people who are rich and powerful. Movers and shakers, you know; the kind of people who aren't directly involved in government, but who can pressure politicians to serve their interests. There's nothing new about the concept; there's always been people exerting power from behind the throne. SEELE is just the latest coalition of rich folk to try teaming up to promote their interests; not that it stops conspiracy nuts from declaring them to be the Illuminati or the New World Order or whatnot. In any case, while our funding ultimately comes from SEELE, they don't micromanage us; NERV is fairly autonomous in it's daily operations. And as for the GeoFront... _this_ is the GeoFront."

At that moment, the escalator brought the car out of the tunnel and into a vast open space. The escalator was following a spiral path around the inside of a giant dome. Hanging from the ceiling of the dome was an upside-down city. The sight stuck Nanoha breathless.

"Behold!" Lindy said theatrically. "The true Tokyo-3, heart of NERV and headquarters for the coming war against the Angels! Pretty nifty, isn't it? Feel free to stare; I did too, the first time I came down here."

When the escalator brought them to ground level, Lindy resumed driving. She was able to travel even faster down here; unlike the city above, the roads in the GeoFront had clearly been designed with the need for rapid travel during a crisis in mind. A highway brought them to the center of the dome, where a large black pyramid stood. Nanoha thought it looked more like a modern art installation than the headquarters of a military organizations.

Inside the pyramid, they got inside another elevator which took them still further downwards. Nanoha asked how deep the facility went; Lindy said that the very lowest levels were over 13 kilometers below the Earth's surface, though only the Commander was cleared for access to those areas. Nanoha had many more questions, but Lindy mostly refrained from answering them, saying that she'd be meeting the Commander soon enough.

Lindy brought Nanoha to a room she called the Staging Area. It was a large hexagonal room, the walls of which were lined with shafts that seemed to led still deeper into the facility. Oddly, Nanoha could see no stairs, ladders, elevator cables, or any other means by which they might be descended.

Standing in the center of the Staging Area were two women. One had long, dark hair and cold, piercing eyes; she had a headset clipped to her ear, and seemed to be listening to a constant stream of chatter from it. Occasionally she would speak a few short, clipped commands that were obviously being transmitted to people elsewhere in the facility. The other woman looked slightly younger and had shorter, blonde hair. She wore a lab coat and carried a metal briefcase in one hand.

"Nanoha, this is Precia Testarossa, head of NERV; and Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, chief scientist. Commander, Doctor, this is Nanoha Takamachi." Lindy said.

"Thank you, Captain. You may leave us now." Precia said.

As Lindy left the room, Precia continued:

"Nanoha. You have been brought here for one purpose: to fight and defeat the Angels."

"You want me to _fight_ that thing!" Nanoha asked. "How?"

"With magic." Dr. Akagi said.

"What do you mean, magic?" Nanoha asked.

Dr. Akagi opened the metal briefcase, revealing a small red crystal lying in padding.

"There is an organ called the Linker Core which allows for the channeling of magical power. In humans, the Linker Core is largely vestigial; thus, we lack the capability to use magic. This object here is an Intelligent Device, called Raising Heart. It will bond with your body and function as an artificial Linker Core, thus granting you magical power." she explained.

"I wouldn't know the first thing about using magic to fight." Nanoha protested.

"The Device will instruct you. It's not exactly sentient, but it does possess a rudimentary intelligence." Dr. Akagi said.

Nanoha looked at the Intelligent Device.

"This is an amazing opportunity, Nanoha." Precia said. "By taking this Device, you can attain power beyond your wildest imagination. The power to do great things. The power to achieve fame as the world's savior. The power to defend the people you love."

The more she thought about it, the more Nanoha liked the idea. She had always wanted to achieve greatness — not fame or glory, necessarily, but to do something that would leave a lasting impact on the world. The idea of having the power to protect others also strongly appealed to her. How many fights had she gotten into at school, protecting smaller kids from bullies? And Precia was talking about the power to defend the entire human race. Strange that Precia would happen to say precisely the things that Nanoha would find most persuasive. Or had Precia somehow known? She didn't seem the type to speak carelessly.

"Is there any way I could just give it a try?" Nanoha asked cautiously. "Like, fight this one Angel and then make my decision?"

"Unfortunately, the bonding process is permanent—" Dr. Akagi began, but Precia cut her off.

"With Sachiel currently on our doorstep, we are in a difficult position, and thus willing to compromise." Precia said. "There are other Intelligent Devices currently in production; if you are unsatisfied with your job for NERV, then you may choose to depart as soon as a replacement arrives. As Dr. Akagi said, there is currently no known way to remove an Intelligent Device once it has bonded, so even if you decide to leave you will keep your newfound magical powers. If, however, you find that working for NERV suits you — as I believe you will — then by remaining with us for the duration of the war you will earn all of the financial benefits that were promised to you in exchange for coming to Tokyo-3. SEELE predicts that we will be able to defeat the Angels by the end of the year, and they are in a position to know such things; so even if you work for us the entire time, we are asking for no more than six months of service."

It sounded like a pretty good deal.

"Okay. I'll do it." Nanoha said.

"I'm glad to hear it." Dr. Akagi said. "Just pick up Raising Heart and the bonding process will begin."

Nanoha reached out and grabbed the small red crystal. She had just closed her hand around it when she felt a sharp stinging sensation.

"Ow!"

Nanoha dropped the crystal in shock and looked at the palm of her hand. There was a small red welt where her skin had touched the Device.

"What was that?" Nanoha asked.

"When a human tries to bond with a Device, something we call a rejection reaction occurs." Dr. Akagi explained apologetically. "Your body is recognizing the Linker Core as a foreign object and attempting to reject it. It will stop when the bonding is complete — you only have to endure the pain for a few seconds, then you'll never feel it again."

"Why didn't you warn me?" Nanoha asked.

"I didn't want you to worry about it unnecessarily." Dr. Akagi said. "Just think of it like removing a band-aid. Bear with it for a few moments and then it'll be over."

Nanoha tried picking up the Device again. This time she kept her hold on it when it stung her, but the pain continued to grow the longer she held onto it until finally she let it drop.

"Nanoha, please, try harder." Dr. Akagi said. "This is important."

"Why can't one of you do it, if it's so important!" Nanoha demanded. "You'd probably be better at fighting the Angel than me anyway — you're both adults, and I'm just a kid!"

"I truly wish that I could do it." Dr. Akagi said wistfully. "When I was a little girl, I always dreamed of becoming a Magical Girl. But I'm too old now — the rejection reaction would kill me."

"_Kill_ you!" Nanoha said in horror. "You mean I could _die_ from touching this thing?"

"You won't die." Dr. Akagi hurriedly reassured her. "You were chosen specifically because your blood tests indicated a high compatibility with Raising Heart. But only someone undergoing the beginning of puberty can bond with an Intelligent Device. With puberty, the body undergoes certain biological changes—"

"This is no time for a medical lecture, Dr. Akagi." Precia interrupted. "Tokyo-3 is in peril, and time is short. Are truly you willing to abandon all of those people to their fate, Nanoha?"

Nanoha thought hard about what to do. Of course she couldn't just let everybody die. But when she'd been called to Tokyo-3, she'd never imagined that she might be asked to risk her life. She still remembered when her father had been working his old job as a bodyguard, the fear of wondering each time he left for work if she was seeing him for the last time. What would it do to her family if she died? But how could she refuse to save lives when it was within her power to do so? What was the right thing to do?

* * *

Precia watched the girl tremble with indecision. She had studied the girl's psychological report and could guess what was going through her mind. She wanted to protect people in the abstract, yes; but she hadn't actually met any of the inhabitants of Tokyo-3 since arriving and was having a hard time thinking of them as real people as opposed to her family, who she knew well. It was a difficult decision, making the choice to risk your life for the sake of the faceless masses. And while Precia was confident in her psychological appraisal of the girl, she could not be certain what decision the girl would eventually make. Humans were annoyingly unpredictable in that way.

Precia did not like unpredictability. As such, she had spent a long time learning how to manipulate people. For every person under her command, she was aware of a psychological lever which she could use to manipulate them. Since meeting the girl, Precia had been experimenting with different levers to see which one worked best on her. It was easy to gauge the girl's reaction: the tremble of a hand, the intake of breath, the dilation of a pupil; from these subtle signs, Precia could read the girl's true feelings. Her strongest reaction had been to "the power to defend the people you love".

The girl possessed a strong protective instinct; that could be used to control her. But this protective instinct would not be activated by an abstract threat to the faceless, nameless masses of Tokyo-3. "A single death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic" as Erich Remarque had so astutely written. It would require specific, measurable danger to someone the girl could sympathize with; something that would cause her to think emotionally, not logically. That would provoke the girl into demonstrating the protective behavior which had gotten her into so many playground brawls.

Precia allowed herself what she thought of as a smile. No one observing her would have been able to tell; she had trained herself to always maintain a blank expression that betrayed no hint of her true thoughts or emotions. But in her mind's eye, Precia imagined herself smiling.

She had found her lever.

* * *

Nanoha was still struggling to think when Precia spoke.

"If the new candidate will not do it, we'll have to use Fate. Have her prepared for combat."

"Commander, I only just stabilized her condition!" Dr. Akagi protested. "It'll be two weeks before she's ready for combat again!"

"What other choice do we have but to use her?" Precia asked. "Would you have me beg and grovel before SEELE, pleading for them to come to our aid?"

"SEELE doesn't want a Third Impact any more than we do, I'm sure they'd—" Dr. Akagi began, but abruptly bit her lip as she realized that wasn't what Precia wanted to hear.

"I will not prostrate myself before them!" Precia said vehemently. "In any case, it will not be necessary. You'll see."

One of the doors to the Staging Area opened, and three nurses entered wheeling a stretcher. They rolled it over to Precia, in the process allowing Nanoha a good view of the person lying in it. It was a girl about Nanoha's age. Large portions of her body were wrapped in fresh bandages, giving her a fragile appearance. Even so, Nanoha was struck by how beautiful she was. Looking into the girl's soft, deep eyes, Nanoha felt something she had never experienced before, an emotion she could not put a name to. She felt an overwhelming urge to protect this frail girl.

"Fate. You will fight again." Precia said.

"Yes, Mother." the girl said.

"You want to make me proud, don't you?"

"Yes, Mother." Fate said again.

"Then stand." Precia ordered.

Fate tried to climb out of her bed. Though she did her best to hide it, Nanoha could tell that she was in terrible pain. Fate managed to stand up, then her legs buckled beneath her and she began to fall. Nanoha dove forwards and caught her before she could hit the ground.

"You can't expect her to fight in this condition!" Nanoha said, cradling the injured girl.

"Who will defeat the Angel, if not her?" Precia asked.

"I will!" Nanoha said. "I'll use the Device, and fight the Angel! So please, take this girl to the hospital! Can't you see she's in pain!"

"She values her duty above that." Precia said. "But you stand a higher chance of success than her, given her current condition; fight the Angel, and I will ensure she receives the best available medical treatment."

Nanoha took a deep breath to steady her nerves. Then, trying not to think about what she was doing, she grabbed Raising Heart with both hands and pressed it tightly to her chest. She immediately felt a sharp pain, as if she was being pierced by a spear. The pain grew more intense with each moment, moving deeper into her body as well — was the Device actually burrowing into her flesh? Then, in an instant, it was over. Nanoha drew back her hands and was surprised to see that her skin was unmarked.

"Do you feel any different?" Dr. Akagi asked.

Nanoha did. She could feel Raising Heart beating in her chest like a second heart; but instead of blood, it was pumping magic. The energy slowly circulated through her body, first giving her a pins-and-needles sensation; then an exhilarating rush, like having caffeine pumped straight into her veins.

"Incredible... It's incredible..." Nanoha said.

"The first thing to do is materialize a Barrier Jacket, a garment made of magic which will provide you some protection." Dr. Akagi said. "You just have to—"

"I know." Nanoha said. "Raising Heart is telling me how."

The Device didn't speak in words, but Nanoha could get a general sense of its thoughts. Following its instructions, she raised her left hand and touched it to her chest, where the Device had entered her body.

"Raising Heart," she said, "Set up."

A pink magic circle inscribed itself on the floor beneath her feet, and she felt magical power pouring from Raising Heart, enveloping her body. The magic responded to her thoughts; she could guide it, mold it into a form she desired. She built a bulky white coat around herself. At the same time, Raising Heart was performing its own construction: a staff, to be used by her as a weapon.

"Amazing." Dr. Akagi breathed. "It took Fate six months before she was able to commune with Bardiche at that level."

"Take Fate back to the hospital." Precia instructed the nurses. "Go with them, Dr. Akagi, and see to her treatment personally." Then, into her headset: "Illuminate launch path seven."

Lights began flashing around one of the shafts set into the Staging Area's walls.

"Follow that tunnel to the surface, and engage the Angel." Precia instructed her. "Captain Harlaown will instruct you in the specifics of combat."

She drew from one of her pockets a headset similar to the one she herself wore and briskly put it on Nanoha.

"Um, how do I travel down the—" Nanoha began, but Raising Heart provided her an answer.

"Oh, okay. Um. Flier Fin!"

Nanoha's magic lifted her into the air, and after a few attempts she got the hang of steering. She began flying down the illuminated shaft. It only went down for a short distance before leveling off, then moved horizontally quite a ways before turning up. It curved as it rose; Nanoha figured it must be following the edge of the dome. There were a few places where it intersected with other shafts, but flashing lights indicated which path she should take. Finally, she spotted daylight ahead. Putting on a final burst of speed, she rose out of a cunningly disguised trapdoor in a vacant lot.

She came to a stop hovering face to face with the Angel Sachiel.


	3. The Price Of God

**Chapter 3: The Price Of God**

Nanoha floated face-to-face with Sachiel. The Angel had walked in a straight path through Tokyo-3, pushing through all of the buildings that had been in its way; a trail of debris marked its passage.

Nanoha instinctively recoiled from the Angel, flying down and backwards to land on the asphalt of one of Tokyo-3's roads. The Angel bent slightly at the waist to track her motion, but did not move to follow her; the fight with Fate was still fresh in Sachiel's memory, and it was wary of engaging another Magical Girl.

"Nanoha," Lindy said through Nanoha's headset. "You see that large red sphere on the Angel's chest? That's its Core, its one weak point. Focus all of your attacks there."

"Attack the Core... right." Nanoha mumbled to herself.

It was a fairly obvious target. The sphere of red crystal shone prominently on the Angel's chest. Though it had once been encased in a protective ribcage, the bone had been badly damaged — first by Fate, then by the heat of the N-2 mine explosion. While the Angel's flesh regenerated quickly following any damage, the bone remained broken and half-melted. Nanoha had a clear shot at it — if she could figure out how to shoot.

Letting Raising Heart guide her motions, Nanoha pointed her staff at Sachiel's Core and focused her willpower at the tip. She felt a tingling sensation as the magic flowed through her, then energy began to gather in front of her staff. It condensed into a glowing pink sphere of offensive magic.

"Divine Shooter!" Nanoha shouted.

The ball of energy was released from her staff and launched directly towards the Core. However, halfway across the distance to the Angel, it suddenly ground to a halt. A blue magic circle flared to life in front of the Angel; Nanoha's attack burned brightly against it for a few moments before fading, its power expended.

"The Angel is protected by a Barrier, similar to your Barrier Jacket but far more powerful." Lindy said over the headset. "Conventional weapons are totally useless against it; magic works a lot better, but you'll need a bit more firepower to break—"

At that point, Nanoha stopped listening, because she had bigger problems. Her attack, though unable to penetrate the Barrier, had been enough to provoke Sachiel into action. It swung one of its massive hands down at her, as if to crush her like a bug. Nanoha's instinctive reaction was to throw herself backwards; the Flier Fin spell amplified her movement, causing her to slide back with immense speed. Realizing the danger of crashing into some unseen obstacle behind her, she brought herself to a halt as soon as she was beyond the Angel's reach. The gargantuan hand smashed into the pavement in front of her, sending large chunks of asphalt flying to the sides.

Nanoha aimed her staff again. She prepared to fire Divine Shooter again, but this time drew more deeply on Raising Heart's power. She got the feeling that she had only just begun to stratch the surface of what it was capable of. Nanoha focused on generating a more powerful Divine Shooter, only to hesitate when she saw the Angel open its hand. She had been expecting it to draw its arm back for another strike; instead, it seemed to be gathering magic in the center of its palm...

Nanoha released the attack she was building and hurriedly put up a defensive spell Raising Heart provided her instead.

"Protection!" she yelled, just as the Angel unleashed its attack.

A spear of blue light lanced out from the Angel's palm, striking the sphere of pink magic that blossomed around Nanoha the instant she spoke her spell. The impact was tremendous; her protective shell shattered instantly, and she was sent flying backwards. She crashed through the plate glass window fronting of the building behind her. Fortunately, the majority of the force from the Angel's attack had been absorbed by her shield, and her Barrier Jacket was sufficient to protect her from the shards of glass from the broken window. Her crash landing inside the building still hurt, though.

"Nanoha!" Lindy shouted.

"Ow!" Nanoha said. "Um... I'm okay, I think!"

"Your Barrier may protect you from a glancing blow, but it won't stand up to a direct hit," Lindy warned her. "You can't fight the Angel on equal terms; your only hope is to dodge its attacks and find an opening to strike at the Core."

Nanoha extricated herself from the debris of the shop — she had crashed into a shelf of candy bars, sending chocolate bars cascading over the floor. She quickly jumped back outside through the broken glass fronting of the shop to see Sachiel striding towards her, intent on finishing her off. Blue light began to gather in the hollows of its eye sockets.

"Nanoha! Get out of there!" Lindy warned urgently. "Your Barrier can't handle that attack!"

Nanoha poured power into her Flier Fin spell and shot into the air. With Sachiel looming large in front of her and the building behind her, there was nowhere to go but up. Nanoha rocketed skywards as Sachiel unleashed its deadly beam attack. The blast from its eyes struck the front of the shop Nanoha had just evacuated. Feeling a surge of power from beneath her, Nanoha reconstructed her Barrier. The pink shell reasserted itself and shielded her as a pillar of light erupted out of the shop's foundation, vaporizing the building and passing just behind Nanoha's back as it shot skyward, then branching into the shape of a cross. Nanoha's Barrier held this time, easily dispersing the shockwave from the missed attack, but the crater of semi-molten concrete at the impact point showed clearly how powerful the Angel's beam weapon had been. She doubted even the combined protection of her defense spell and her Barrier Jacket would be enough to save her from a direct hit.

The Angel, observing that its attack had missed, took a half-step towards Nanoha and swung at her. Nanoha drifted backwards out of range, able to retreat now that the building at her back had been reduced to rubble. The Angel stepped forwards, following her. It was too much to hope for that the thing would burn the soles of its feet on the molten concrete, given that it had survived an N-2 mine, but perhaps it would sink and get mired in the slag? It had to weight a ton. No, that couldn't be; it had swum to Japan, meaning it must be less dense than water, let alone concrete. What was Angel flesh made of, anyway? No mortal substance, Nanoha guessed, given its insane regenerative properties.

Sachiel jerked forwards in a half-lunge, perhaps trying to catch Nanoha off guard. She hadn't let her thoughts distract her, however, and easily rolled out of the way of the Angel's ponderous fist. The punch drove deep into the next building behind her, vanishing in a cloud of vaporized glass and concrete. Why wasn't it using its beam weapon anymore? Was there a recharge time between shots? No, it was too dangerous to assume that without more evidence; it might also be because the beam weapon was more dangerous when aimed downwards — when she was high in the air, a miss wouldn't generate the additional cross-shaped explosion.

Sachiel threw a punch with its left fist as it withdrew its right one from the collapsing building. Nanoha easily dodged this as well. While the Angel's attacks were powerful, they weren't very fast. Perhaps this could be the key to defeating it? Nanoha began flying in a circle, trying to get behind Sachiel's back. It turned to track her movement, stretching out a hand to swat her, but Nanoha's speed was enough to stay ahead of it. The Angel's waist proved more flexible than a human's, allowing it to turn farther than Nanoha had thought possible, but eventually it had to stop to alter its footing and Nanoha was able to get behind it.

"Divine Shooter!"

Nanoha tried focusing her attention on multiple points as she channeled power through Raising Heart, and was delighted to see that four glowing spheres of offensive energy materialized this time as opposed to the lone orb produced by her first effort. A push of will sent these attacks flying towards Sachiel's back. The Angel could apparently sense the oncoming attack, even from behind, as its blue protective circle was immediately raised; but this time, Nanoha's attack was more than it could block. One of the sphere expired against the sheet of the Angel's blue magic, but the remaining three punched through the weakened barrier and burned into the Angel's back. Jets of blue blood sprayed from the holes before they sealed themselves.

Sachiel swung both its hands behind its back, trying to smack her out of the sky; but with Nanoha out of its line of sight, its motions were even clumsier than usual. Nanoha easily dodged them, then powered her power into another Divine Buster. Could she manage six shots at once? Yes, she was certain she could. Summoned by her will, the spheres fired directly into the Angel's still-regenerating back. Sachiel let out a screeching sound that might've been a scream as its blood poured out onto the streets of Tokyo-3.

Sachiel tried spinning around again, but Nanoha remained behind its back. The Angel, apparently enraged by her superior maneuverability, began firing eye beams one after another. Nanoha breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn't relied on her "recharge time" idea. Then she flinched, as blazing crosses of light erupted all across Tokyo-3. While Sachiel couldn't hit her while she remained behind its back, she wasn't able to do it any real damage either — the Angel's flesh seemed to regenerate from any amount of punishment. And the longer this went on, the more damage it would do to the city. She needed a way to end this.

When the Angel spun around again, Nanoha didn't keep behind it. Instead she dove to the ground, passing below its swinging fists, and aimed her staff upwards. From the ground directly below the Angel was also safe from its eye beams — because it had no neck, it was severely limited in how far up or down it could look. And from here, she had a clean shot at its Core.

"Divine Shooter!" Nanoha yelled.

The blazing pink streaks shot upwards, towards the Angel's shiny red core. Sachiel, sensing danger, abruptly leaned forwards, causing the magic to impact the Angel's crotch. Nanoha reflexively winced, but the Angel seemed to suffer no more pain than from any of the shots to other areas. Nanoha wondered for a moment if Angels even had a sex, since Sachiel appeared to lack reproductive organs of either kind. How were Angels born? Did anyone even know?

Sachiel thrust its hands downwards while at the same time extending lances of magic from its palms. This did catch Nanoha somewhat off guard — while she managed to react in time to dodge, she instinctively jumped backwards instead of forwards. Moving forwards, between the Angel's legs, would've put her safely behind its back again, but now she was in front of it; directly in range of its beams. Already its bony eye sockets were glowing as it built power.

Protection would be useless; Nanoha instead focused her power into Divine Shooter. There wasn't enough time to summon a full barrage, but two shots might be all she needed. Nanoha's last attack had made her realize — perhaps the Angel did have vulnerable areas, just different ones from a human. She looked at the Angel's spindly legs, so thin and slender to support the entire body of such a giant being... and launched her two summoned attacks straight into the Angel's knees.

Sachiel's knees exploded in twin sprays of blue blood. The Angel abruptly pitched forward as its legs snapped in half, and its readied beam attack hit the ground well short of Nanoha. The Angel was briefly obscured by the brilliant cross-shaped explosion that rose between it and Nanoha; Nanoha used this time to prepare another barrage of Divine Shooter. The instant the light faded and Nanoha got a good look at the Angel — now standing on the bloody stubs of its knees — she fired.

The attacks flew straight for the Angel's Core. Sachiel's defensive reaction was immediate: it drew its hands to its chest and crossed them over the Core. Nanoha's attacks blasted apart the backs of its hands, sending a few severed fingers tumbling through the air with arcs of blue blood trailing behind them, but Nanoha sighed in frustration. Knees, hands, it was pointless. She needed to pierce its defenses, magical and physical, and get a solid hit in on the Core! Nanoha took a moment to commune with Raising Heart. Instead of a barrage of smaller blasts, she needed to focus all of her power into a single, overwhelming strike.

Sachiel was gathering power in its eyes again. Nanoha jumped into the air, over the beam; it impacted somewhere behind her, sending another part of the city up in flames. Her jump took her in a high arc, over Sachiel's head; she landed on a building behind the Angel that she judged still structurally sound and quickly spun around to face the Angel again. Sachiel was struggling to turn around to face her once more, but its hands and feet were still in the process of regenerating. Nanoha leveled Raising Heart at the center of Sachiel's broad back.

"Maximum power — absolute destruction!" she intoned.

The staff vibrated in her hands. She could feel the power gathering in it. A pink magic circle expanded on the rooftop beneath her feet; a second one scrawled itself in the air in front of the tip of her staff. Nanoha focused all the strength in her body on that one spot, willing every drop of magic she had to gather in the swelling sphere of power. Sachiel, sensing the coming attack, stopped its attempt to turn and face her and instead hunkered down, sheltering its Core. But that wouldn't be enough. Not this time.

"Divine... BUSTER!" Nanoha shouted.

An unstoppable torrent of power erupted from her staff, launching itself directly at the prone Angel. Sachiel managed to raise its tattered Barrier one last time, but the curtain of blue light had no sooner flickered into being than Nanoha's attack tore straight through it. The beam of pink energy struck Sachiel in the center of its back; then the Angel's flesh liquified as Nanoha's magic then burned _through_ it, penetrating its body to strike the Core from behind. The force of the impact drove the Core straight out of the Angel's body, mercilessly ripping it from the encompassing flesh. As soon as the Core tore free, the rest of the Angel lost cohesion. Its body began to dissolve like salt in water, its flesh melting into a bloody slush that gave off occasional sparks of blue magic. The Core itself proved more durable, withstanding the onslaught for several seconds; but pinned to the ground by the force of Nanoha's beam, unable to move or defend itself, it soon began to succumb to the inevitable. Cracks spread across the Core's surface and then widened, extending down into the heart of the crystal; then, abruptly, it shattered. The pieces were instantly scattered by the rush of pink magic; as they were blown away, their internal red glow faded, leaving them with a dull grey color. Then even these pieces crumbled to dust, and the Angel Sachiel was no more.

* * *

"Target has gone silent." Maya reported.

"All MAGI are in agreement: Sachiel has been destroyed." Makoto confirmed.

"Remarkable." Fuyutsuki said. "To defeat an Angel with no training... Ms. Takamachi certainly is an exceptional young girl."

"Certainly superior to Fate." Precia said. "The results of today's battle should appease SEELE; for the moment, at least."

"I'll instruct clean-up crews to begin repairing the damage to the city." Fuyutsuki said.

"Yes. Have the Public Relations department put out some propaganda as well." Precia ordered.

Fuyutsuki nodded. "Space alien attacks. UN, helpless against it, attempts to cover it up. Japan's very own NERV organization triumphs using secret weapon. The facts you need to know. Exclusive photographs," he listed off in a complete deadpan.

Precia actually allowed a bemused expression to cross her face.

"Twenty five years I've been learning to read you, and I still can't always be certain whether you're being serious." she said.

"Patriotism always plays well with the masses." he said. "I assume you still want to keep the truth about Second Impact under wraps, though?"

"Yes." Precia said. "We may need to use that as a trump card on another occasion."

"Very well." Fuyutsuki said. "In the meantime, what about the debriefing of Ms. Takamachi?"

"Captain Harlaown can handle that." Precia said. "I'm sure the girl is exhausted; give her any medical treatment she needs, then clear her to go home with Captain Harlaown."

"As you wish."

Fuyutsuki left the command center to carry out his orders. Precia remained in her chair, looking over the scrolling data produced by the MAGI as they analyzed the battle. She appraised the information thoughtfully. The girl was untrained, yes; she lacked Fate's discipline. However, her potential was enormous. With the right guidance, she could become a valuable asset in the endgame of the struggle against SEELE. And even if she proved unsuitable in the end, it was for the moment quite useful to have a backup for Fate. When more Intelligent Devices were available to her, Precia would re-evaluate the girl's usefulness; in the meantime, she would find out exactly what the girl was capable of.


	4. Lindy Harlaown And The Second Impact

**Chapter 4: Lindy Harlaown And The Second Impact**

As soon as Sachiel was confirmed destroyed, Lindy guided Nanoha to another of the shafts leading down to the GeoFront. She followed the illuminated path back down to the staging area. Though exuberant at having prevailed in her first battle, she didn't want to celebrate so much as take a long nap. This practical lesson in using magic had really drained her strength. As soon as she was safely on the ground in the staging area, Nanoha dispelled her Barrier Jacket. Her uniform evaporated off her body, leaving her back in her street clothes, and Raising Heart's staff tidily disassembled itself. She felt the Intelligent Device itself go quiet in her chest, though she could tell that its connection to her remained; she had only to call out to it with her mind, and it would lend her the power of magic once more.

After landing, Nanoha was immediately set upon by a number of nurses, who insisted on taking her to the infirmary for a complete medical examination. Nanoha's first thought was to look around for Fate. She didn't see the injured girl anywhere in the infirmary, though; nor Dr. Akagi, for that matter. Nanoha wondered if Fate was important enough to warrant a private room. She remembered the girl had called Commander Testarossa "mother"; if Fate really was the Commander's daughter, she might well warrant special treatment.

Soon enough, the medical staff assured Nanoha that she was in perfect health. She had only a few superficial bruises from the fight, and her bond with Raising Heart had now been completely established without any negative side-effects. A nurse gave Nanoha a large glass of juice to drink, telling her that it was important to replenish sugar and fluids after exerting herself with magic, then gave her the go-ahead to leave.

Lindy was waiting for Nanoha outside the infirmary.

"It was a great thing you did today," she said. "We're all very proud of you. You're a real hero."

"I wasn't trying to be a hero." Nanoha said, a little uncomfortable with the praise. "I just did what I had to."

"Modest, huh." Lindy said. "Well, just keep in mind that you're now pretty much a celebrity here. So if you want to demand a pay raise, it's not like they can turn you down, right?"

"Right now I'd just like to rest." Nanoha said. "I'll be staying with you, right?"

"That's right." Lindy said. "I've got a room prepared for you at my apartment — I haven't unpacked any of your stuff yet, but the basic furnishings are there..."

"That's fine." Nanoha assured her.

"Then let's go." Lindy said.

Actually getting to the apartment turned out to be a bit of a trip. First they had to drive from the black pyramid back to the edge of the GeoFront and take the spiral car lift back up to the surface. Then it turned out that Lindy's apartment complex was on the edge of the city, a moderate drive away.

"Why do you live all the way out here?" Nanoha asked. "Shouldn't you live closer in, so you can get to NERV quickly in an emergency?"

"Oh, they wanted to give me an apartment in the middle of the city, but I insisted on this one." Lindy said. "The way I see it, every Angel that attacks is going to make a beeline for the center of the city, because that's where the roof of the GeoFront is thinnest. So if I live out here, there's a much lower chance of my apartment getting destroyed in a battle."

"Destroyed in battle... right." Nanoha said guiltily. "Um, speaking of which, I'm really sorry about all the damage the Angel did to the city before I stopped it... Everyone was evacuated right? I hope no one got hurt..."

Lindy laughed at Nanoha's worried expression.

"There's nothing to worry about. Here, let me show you something." she said.

The car had just reached the top of a hill that gave a good view over Tokyo-3. Lindy shifted it into park and then got out; Nanoha followed. Lindy pointed at the city.

"Take a good look." she said.

Nanoha did. The battle damage was plain to see. Sachiel had marched for the center of the city in a straight line, plowing right through any buildings that had been its path; a long trail of rubble marked its route. What's more, various buildings in other parts of the city had been blown up by errant beam attacks during its attacks with Nanoha. Though the fires had by now been extinguished, columns of smoke still rose into the sky as a grim reminder of the Angel's destructive power.

"Here it comes." Lindy said.

An air raid siren sounded, giving off three long, shrill wails. A low grinding sound rumbled through the ground. Then, as Nanoha watched, buildings began to rise from the ground. They came up out of places that Nanoha had assumed were vacant lots or sites still under construction, doubling the number of gleaming skyscrapers in the city.

"This is the true Tokyo-3." Lindy said. "When the city comes under attack, all of the real buildings retract into the ground and descend to the ceiling of the GeoFront. The ones that remain on the surface are just hollow shells; decoys to fool the enemy. Sachiel didn't do any damage to Tokyo-3 at all — you stopped it before it had the chance. You really succeeding in protecting everyone and everything. That's why I called you a hero."

"I'm just glad no one got hurt." Nanoha said, a little embarrassed at such earnest praise.

"I was just kidding when I said you should ask for a raise; but in all serious, you're now pretty much a celebrity here. So if there's anything you need, anything at all, just ask and we'll do our best to help you out." Lindy said in all earnestness.

Nanoha blushed and said nothing.

"Hm, it's almost sunset. Come on, let's get going." Lindy said.

* * *

Lindy soon pulled into the parking lot of a moderately sized apartment complex. She had a pretty nice apartment, one with multiple rooms and even a balcony. It gave a beautiful view of the sun setting over the newly risen buildings of Tokyo-3.

"Oh, Nanoha. Before you go to sleep, there are a few things I'd like to talk to you about. Would you mind having some tea with me?" Lindy asked.

"I'd be happy to." Nanoha said.

Lindy made up a pot of green tea. She passed one cup of tea to Nanoha, then poured a second cup for herself. Then, to Nanoha's complete shock, Lindy proceeded to drop three cubes of sugar into her cup of green tea.

"So you, uh... you take sugar in your tea...?" Nanoha asked.

"It's a habit I picked up from my mother." Lindy explained. "My father was Japanese, but my mother was British. My father loved green tea; my mother always took black tea with sugar. I have a mix of both their tastes, I guess."

"Are you and your parents close?" Nanoha asked.

"They're dead now." Lindy said flatly. "My father died in Second Impact; my mother a few years later, in the wars. NERV took me in after that, and I've worked for them ever since."

"Sorry... I didn't know." Nanoha said.

"It's okay." Lindy assured her. "It's kind of related to what I wanted to talk to you about. Nanoha, what do you know about Second Impact?"

"A meteorite, less than four inches in diameter but traveling at nearly the speed of light, hit Mt. Markham in Antarctica," Nanoha dutifully recited. "We were taught that in school."

"Well, it's not true." Lindy said. "That's a cover story, a lie; propaganda put out by the UN."

"What?"

"You must be wondering about the Angels. What they are, where they come from. How NERV knew to prepare for their attack." Lindy said. "We've known for fifteen years that the Angels were coming, because Second Impact was the first salvo of their war against us."

Lindy sipped her tea contemplatively.

"In the year 2000, aerial surveys performed with ground-penetrating radar revealed the existence of a second GeoFront in Antarctica, virtually identical to the one beneath Tokyo-3. An expedition was mounted by the UN — they had a lot less power back then, but did hold jurisdiction over Antarctica. It was called the Harlaown Expedition, and the man in charge was my father."

Nanoha listened attentively but silently. Lindy's face showed she was struggling with the emotions raised by this story, and Nanoha didn't want to interrupt.

"The expedition's purpose was to investigate the second GeoFront." Lindy said. "Since the one beneath Tokyo-3 was discovered so long ago, no one knows what was originally in it; any items it might have once held were looted over a thousand years ago."

What kind of "items" would one expect to find in a sealed chamber nearly as old as the planet itself, Nanoha wondered? Lindy must have noticed the confusion on her face.

"The GeoFronts are not natural phenomenon." Lindy explained. "They were constructed. Long before the emergence of humanity — before the emergence of _any_ terrestrial life — some powerful intelligence engineered these caverns. One of the most prominent hypotheses among those in the know was the idea that they were treasure vaults, made to hold vast riches of alien technology. There was no actual evidence of that, mind you, but people believe what they want, and the idea of a vault full of treasure just waiting to be opened must've been pretty appealing. In any case, the Harlaown Expedition was supposed to drill down into the Antarctic GeoFront and find out for sure. But not long after they entered the GeoFront..."

"Second Impact." Nanoha guessed.

"Inside the chamber was the first Angel, called Adam. My father's last transmission..." Lindy swallowed. "In my father's last transmission, he described it as _a giant of light_. He sounded so... awe-struck."

Lindy took a moment to compose herself before continuing.

"Adam self-destructed. You must've noticed in your fight against Sachiel, the Angel's bodies aren't like ours. They might wear a semblance of flesh and blood, but what their bodies are really composed of is magic. This makes them incredibly versatile, in that they can easily change their shape or regenerate damage. Adam... it converted its entire body, all of the magic composing it, into offensive power. The power released was enough to destroy an entire continent, enough to shift the planet on its axis. But that's not all it did. Analysis of data from the explosion showed that Adam didn't just randomly blow itself up — its offensive magic was deliberately modulated to be purely physical in effect. In other words, to not harm other beings like itself. To beings of pure magic, the explosion would act more like a signal beacon... a summons."

"Calling more Angels." Nanoha said.

"And that's how we knew the war was coming." Lindy concluded. "That's why NERV was created. We thought we were opening a treasure chest, but it turned out to be Pandora's Box, and now all the evils of the world have been set free to ravage humanity. It's our job to stop them."

"Wow." Nanoha said, at a loss for other words.

"Well... there are still a few things I don't know." Lindy confessed. "Like, SEELE seems to think that the war will be over by the end of the year. I haven't seen any evidence to support this; as far as I know, there's no way to be sure how many Angels are coming for us. But SEELE must know something I don't, because they're awfully confident about this — the Commander, too. But hey, I'm just a Captain. I'm sure they have their reasons."

Lindy tried to laugh it off, but Nanoha could tell that she wasn't very happy about being left out of the loop.

"Thanks for telling me all this." Nanoha said.

"Just doing my job." Lindy said. "If you're going to be fighting Angels for us, you've got to be properly informed. If you have any other questions, just let me know."

"Well, there is one thing..." Nanoha said hesitantly.

"Ask away." Lindy said confidently.

"There was another girl like me there... one with long blonde hair. The Commander called her 'Fate', and she called the Commander 'mother'... Who is she?" Nanoha asked.

"Ah." Lindy said, notably less enthusiastic now. "That girl really is the Commander's daughter. Her name is Alicia, Alicia Testarossa, but everyone just calls her Fate. She was the first girl to successfully bond with an Intelligent Device, the first Magical Girl. The thing about Fate is... well, there are a lot of ugly rumors. The fact that the Commander chose her own daughter to be the first Magical Girl, even though her compatibility scores with Bardiche weren't as high as some of the other candidates... it's the kind of thing that makes people cry nepotism."

Lindy paused for a moment, as though considering how much she should say, then continued:

"There's also the fact that nobody knows who Nanoha's father is. The Commander was married, once; but her husband, Gendo Rokubungi, was second-in-command of the Harlaown Expedition. He died in the Second Impact, fifteen years ago. Fate is only around ten, so she can't be Gendo's daughter. She's definitely the Commander's biological daughter, not adopted — all the medical workups she'a undergone confirm that — but the Commander refuses to discuss her parentage."

"I hope I get to see her again." Nanoha said.

"Oh, no need to worry about that." Lindy said. "She goes to the same school you'll be attending; and you'll train together, too. She's pretty badly injured, though; it might be a couple weeks before she's ready for combat again."

"That's good..." Nanoha yawned. "She seemed like... such a nice girl..."

"Whoa. I almost forgot how exhausted you must be." Lindy said. "I better get you to bed before you fall asleep on your feet."

Lindy led Nanoha to her bedroom, which was sparsely furnished but inhabitable. Lindy herself slept in a Western bed, another habit she learned from her mother, but had procured a futon for Nanoha. She tucked Nanoha in, and Nanoha quickly drifted off. Soon she was fast asleep, dreaming of the girl with blonde hair and beautiful eyes. And it never even occurred to her to consider that, when telling her about Second Impact, Lindy Harlaown had lied.


	5. The Lonely Conqueror Of God

**Chapter 5: The Lonely Conqueror Of God**

Over the next week, Nanoha adjusted to her new life in Tokyo-3. Nanoha had thought leaving her family to live in the city would give her a lot more freedom, but she quickly discovered that the opposite was true. Lindy, while very cheerful and personable, was also surprisingly strict when it came to household chores. Nanoha supposed it was only normal to expect military discipline from someone who'd spent most of their life at NERV, but she'd been thrown off guard by Lindy's early praise for her. However, Lindy soon set her straight: Hero she may be, but she was still expected to do the dishes and take out the garbage.

Nanoha's family had also been pretty lax in letting her run around unsupervised. This was not so in Tokyo-3. As one of NERV's precious, irreplaceable Magical Girls, she was chaperoned everywhere by security personnel. For someone used to have a lot of personal freedom, the sudden presence of an escort was quite chafing. Lindy made it quite clear, however, that if Nanoha ever tried to ditch them for some childish reason, she would personally see to it that Nanoha was physically handcuffed to a bodyguard. She didn't seem to be joking, so Nanoha grudgingly agreed to put up with their presence.

School was another thing that needed adjusting to. All of the other students were children of NERV employees, and thus knew all about Nanoha being a Magical Girl and saving the city. Their responses were varied: some became an instant fanclub, viewing her a savior and worshiping the very ground she walked on; others resented her for her special privileges, and made a habit of loudly commenting about how much better they would've done in a fight with Sachiel whenever Nanoha was within earshot. Nanoha herself was mostly just embarrassed by all the attention. She wasn't used to standing out at school, and wasn't sure how to handle her new celebrity status.

Notably absent from school was Fate. Nanoha had confirmed very early on that Fate was indeed a member of the same class as her; however, after an entire week, she still hadn't showed up even once. Questioning her classmates, Nanoha learned that this was actually not uncommon for Fate. She often missed class, either due to magic training at NERV or else due to medical leave for injuries sustained during said training. Of course, Fate had clearly been severely injured when Nanoha saw her, so it was not unreasonable to expect her to take time off from school to recover. Nonetheless, Nanoha was only further disturbed by what she learned.

Why was Fate frequently injured during training? Nanoha had also begun daily magic training at NERV, and not once had she been injured in the process. Most of it was quite simple: learning to maneuver better when using Flier Fin, or to aim better when firing Divine Shooter. The only activity that Nanoha could even think of that might result in her getting hurt was when she practiced raising a shield with Protection. Even then, there was very little danger; conventional attacks were nearly entirely ineffective against the magic barrier. The worst that might happen was that she might take a little too long to raise the shield and get thumped by the rubber pellet she was supposed to block. There was certainly nothing in her training that might injure her severely enough that she'd have to miss school. Was Fate's training routine different? What exactly had she gone through?

* * *

Two weeks after Nanoha first arrived in Tokyo-3, just when Nanoha was starting to get a sense of routine to her life, that routine was interrupted. She was attending class like usual when one of her security guards entered the room and walked over to her desk. Nanoha's first reaction was embarrassment; it was bad enough being chaperoned everywhere, but at least the guards usually had the good sense to stay out of the sight. Everything changed, however, when the guard spoke.

"An Angel has been detected. I am to bring you to Captain Harlaown, who has arranged for transport to the engagement zone."

Nanoha got an adrenaline rush as multiple feelings hit her at once. There was fear, at facing the enemy in combat again; but also exhilaration at the prospect of using her magic in full battle. It was an incredible rush, feeling the magic pour through her body; even her most intense training sessions couldn't capture a fraction of the feeling of a true fight. Buried beneath these two emotions, there was a third: an eager desire to know if Fate had been summoned as well.

Nanoha allowed the guard to lead her out of the school building. When she got outside, she received quite a shock. When the guard said that Lindy would arrange transportation, Nanoha assumed he meant that Lindy would drive her to NERV. Instead, there was a helicopter sitting in the school parking lot.

"Nanoha!" Lindy called. "Come over and get in!"

As soon as Nanoha was inside the helicopter, the pilot began preparing for take-off.

"Why are we using a helicopter? The GeoFront is underground." Nanoha said.

"We won't be going to the GeoFront." Lindy said. "The plan is to intercept the target in the ruins of Old Tokyo. That way, there's much less risk of collateral damage to the city. Time is of the essence, so NERV provided a helicopter for us to take to the site."

"Oh." Nanoha said. "Well, if we're really in a hurry, I could use Flier Fin..."

Lindy shook her head. "Save your magic for the Angel. You might end up needing everything you've got. The target has been designated _Shamshel_, by the way."

"Will Fate be there?" Nanoha asked.

"I heard she's been cleared by medical, so yes, you two will be working together on this operation." Lindy said. "I hope it goes okay; you were supposed to undergo a week of training for team combat before fighting an actual battle together, but it looks like the Angels have no respect for our schedule..."

Nanoha had stopped listening. Fate. She was finally going to meet Fate. That was the only thought in her mind as the helicopter carried her north-east towards the ruins of Old Tokyo.

* * *

The helicopter dropped Nanoha off at the shore overlooking the sunken city of Old Tokyo. Lindy gave Nanoha a headset for communication, then got back in the helicopter to retreat to a safe distance from the coming conflict. Nanoha looked around briefly, then saw her. Standing a short was down the shoreline was Fate. Her twintails blew in the salty breeze drifting in from the ocean. Her eyes gazed off into the distance. Fate's eyes were incredible beautiful, but looked strangely pained; they radiated a deep sadness. Though Nanoha had been looking forward to talking to Fate for so long, she was suddenly unsure of what to say to this girl with such sad, beautiful eyes.

"Um, hello." Nanoha said somewhat lamely as she approached.

Fate turned to face her.

"You are the second Magical Girl?" Fate asked flatly.

"Yes, that's right. My name is Nanoha Takamachi, but you can just call me Nanoha. Your name is Fate Testarossa, right?" Nanoha said in a rush.

Instead of replying directly, Fate turned back to the ocean.

"The Angel Shamshel is approaching." she said. "It is not yet visible, but should arrive at our position soon."

"Right." Nanoha said. "Until then, I'd like to get to know you, Fate. We haven't seen each other since that day in the staging area..."

"We should prepare for combat." Fate said, raising her hand to her chest. "Bardiche, set up."

"Oh, oh course." Nanoha said. "Raising Heart, set up."

Twin magic circles of yellow and pink glowed as Fate and Nanoha activated their Barrier Jackets and assembled their weapons.

"There. We're ready for the Angel." Nanoha said. "Now, would you talk with me?"

"Why?" Fate asked with a blank expression.

"Well... so I can get to know you." Nanoha said, somewhat taken aback. "I'd like to be your friend, if that's okay."

"You will be my partner in battle. I understand this. But there is no reason for us to have social relations." Fate said

"...What?" Nanoha said, confused.

"My purpose is to fight the Angels. Nothing is important except defeating them. There is no point to other activities." Fate said. "I have no friends. But that is okay, because friends are unimportant. That's what Mother told me."

Nanoha was speechless. All the times she'd thought about finally speaking to Fate, she'd never imagined an outright rejection like this. She had no idea how to respond.

"Cut the chatter!" Lindy suddenly interrupted over the headset. "The Angel is approaching!"

Nanoha and Fate immediately turned towards the ocean. They could see it now, skimming across the surface of the water between the half-submerged buildings of Old Tokyo: the Angel Shamshel. It had a slug-like body, which swept forwards into an arrowhead-like hood that shielded its Core. Two small, stubby appendages protruded from its body near its neck.

"Time to fight." Fate said.

She abruptly launched herself into the air, flying directly towards the Angel. It took a moment for Nanoha to react, but as soon as she realized what was happening she engaged her Flier Fin spell and took to the air as well. She was amazed by how fast Fate traveled; even with Flier Fin running at maximum power, Fate still continued accelerating away from her.

Shamshel, sensing the approach of the two Magical Girls, ceased its own advance. It rose up like a cobra rearing to strike, and a blue magical circle appeared in the air between it and Fate. Fate didn't slow down; instead, she raised Bardiche and swung it at the Barrier, adding her momentum to the force of the strike.

"Arc Saber!" Fate yelled.

A blade of yellow magic extended from Bardiche and sliced into the Angel's Barrier. The massive momentum behind Fate's attack forced the blade through the Barrier, ripping the Angel's shield in half straight down the center. Fate immediately put on speed again, flying towards the Core. However, though Shamshel's shield had been broken, the Angel was far from defenseless. Two streams of blue magic poured from its stump-like appendages, forming thin tentacles. The magical whips sliced through the air with incredible speed, the flickering blue magic giving off an electric sizzle reminiscent of a downed power line.

Fate faltered at the sight of the whips, breaking off her attack and staring at them in shock. Nanoha was surprised by the intensity of the girl's reaction: she almost seemed to be terrified of them, the way she lost her composure. After a moment, Fate was able to shake off whatever had come over her and regain her stance; but now, with the whips lashing wildly across the space in front of Shamshel, it was clear that the opportunity to attack had been lost. Fate reversed her course, speeding back away from the Angel. But Shamshel wasn't about her let her escape its reach; and even with her incredible speed, Fate wasn't as fast as the Angel's flailing whips.

"Defenser!"

At the last moment, realizing she couldn't escape, Fate raised a shield. One of the Angel's glowing whips struck it straight-on, bashing it with incredible speed and force. A single blow shattered Fate's protective circle. The magic energy that made the whips hiss and crackle as they passed through the air was dispersed by Fate's shield, but the physical force of the blow was transmitted through to her frail body. The impact knocked Fate off-course; instead of flying away from Shamshel, she was now plunging downwards, further into the range of its whips.

Nanoha didn't hesitate for a moment. She flew towards the Angel herself, catching Fate as she fell. Shamshel, attempting to finish off the stunned girl, lashed out with both whips. Nanoha knew that if Fate couldn't dodge, then she herself stood no chance. There was no choice but to take the blow.

"Protection!"

Knowing what was coming, Nanoha braced herself against the impact. The first whip slammed into her shield, shattering it. The force of the blow vibrated Nanoha badly, but she was able to keep her focus and maintain the Flier Fin spell. But the second whip was still incoming, and she didn't have time to cast her defensive spell again. Seeing no other choice, Nanoha spun around, placing herself between the oncoming attack and Fate. The blazing whip smashed directly into Nanoha's body. Her Barrier Jacket could only provide so much protection; the back of the jacket ripped open under the attack, and Shamshel's magic seared Nanoha's unprotected back. Nanoha screamed as she felt her skin burn and blister, and this time her Flier Fin spell did fail. Fate had recovered, however, and now grabbed Nanoha as Nanoha had grabbed her; putting on a burst of speed, she brought both of them out of range of further strikes from the Angel's tentacles.

"You saved me..." Fate said wondrously.

"And you returned the favor." Nanoha said. "C'mon, we can take this thing."

Nanoha reestablished her Flier Fin and pulled free of Fate's embrace. She then leveled her staff at the Angel.

"Divine Shooter!" Nanoha declared.

Multiple spheres of burning pink magic swelled into existence around Nanoha, then fired in a barrage at Shamshel. The Angel, entirely unperturbed, proceeded to demonstrate how truly fast and maneuverable its whips were: it intercepted the attacks, swatting each and every sphere out of the air before they reached its body. The whips flared and crackled with each impact, but did not break.

"Again! Divine Shooter!" Nanoha said.

"Photon Lancer!" Fate added in.

Over a dozen pink and yellow attacks shot towards the Angel. Its whips carved out an elegant ballet of light as they danced around in front of it, intercepting each of the magic spheres without fail. Even with its shield broken, its defense was impenetrable.

"It's blocking our attacks." Fate said.

"Only one thing left to try, then." Nanoha said. "Let's see it try to block this!"

A pink magic circle formed in front of Raising Heart, and power began to gather in it. Shamshel kept its whips in a guard position as it watched a large sphere of magic grow in front of Nanoha.

"Divine... BUSTER!" Nanoha roared.

An enormous beam of pink light blazed from her staff, firing directly at the Angel's core. The Angel's appendages, though incredibly fast and versatile, were also quite thin. There was no way they could block this attack: even if the sheer magnitude of the power did not disintegrate them entirely, they would only be able to intercept a small portion of it. Shamshel seemed to recognize this, because it made no attempt to block the oncoming rush of offensive magic. Instead, it _dodged_. The Angel dropped the raised upper portion of its body back down flat against the surface of the ocean, moving its Core out of the path of Nanoha's attack. What's more, it began rushing forwards, its arrowhead-shaped front end skimming the surface of the water. Nanoha, drained by the attack she had just unleashed, could only watch as the Angel reared back up in front of her. Shamshel lashed out with its whips, and there was nothing she could do to dodge...

"Lightning Bind!" Fate called.

A wide circle of yellow magic inscribed itself between Nanoha and the oncoming whips. Nanoha thought she was done for as the blazing tendrils passed right through the center without resistance — only to watch in shock as the circle suddenly glowed brighter and then swiftly contacted. The whips were suddenly pinched within a tight band of magic, unable to extend or retract. It only lasted a few moments before Shamshel gave them a mighty flail and they burst free, but it was enough time for Fate to grab Nanoha and pull her once more back out of the Angel's range.

"Fate... That thing you just did. Could you do it again, but hold the Angel's tentacles longer?" Nanoha asked.

"The binding spell takes a lot of power to maintain; I had to drop it to grab you." Fate said. "But if focused all my attention on it, then yes, I believe I could prevent the Angel from breaking it so quickly."

"I have an idea on how to beat the Angel." Nanoha said. "But we have to work together, okay?"

"Okay." Fate agreed.

Nanoha told Fate her plan. Then the two of them dived towards Shamshel. The Angel reacted defensively, raising its whips to intercept them. Fate immediately broke off her dive and focused all her magical power on creating an unbreakable binding.

"Lightning Bind!"

A magic circle again contracted around Shamshel's whips. The Angel undulated them wildly, trying to break it like it had the first one. This time, however, Fate kept her attention focused on the spell and continued pouring her power into it; no matter how much the Angel flailed, the circle would not snap.

Nanoha, meanwhile, continued her dive until she reached the ocean surface. While Shamshel was focused on trying to free itself from Fate's binding, Nanoha leveled her staff and began to summon power.

"Come on, Raising Heart, let's give it everything we have left." Nanoha said.

Magic gathered and swelled into a sphere in front of Nanoha. Shamshel noticed her, now, but there was nothing it could do, because Nanoha was aiming at the _lower_ portion of its body. Shamshel's battle poise was like a cobra raised to strike: it could move the raised upper portion of its body around a great deal; but the lower portion, still in contact with the water's surface, was far less mobile. With Fate still holding its whips, there was nothing it could do to defend itself.

"Divine Buster!" Nanoha shouted.

She poured all of her remaining magic into the strike. A massive pink beam lanced out from her staff and struck the Angel's lower half. Shamshel let out a high-pitched keening noise as the lower portion of its body dissolved under the fury of Nanoha's magic. A waterfall of blue blood poured down from the Angel's severed upper half; then the unsupported flesh came tumbling down to the ocean with a mighty crash. The Angel floated in the water in the middle of a spreading circle of blue blood. Its flesh was already beginning to regenerate, growing back the lost portion of its body below its waist, but it made no difference. The Angel had come to float on its _back_; its Core was fully exposed. And while Nanoha had no more energy left to mount an offense, Fate still brimmed with power. She plunged from the sky and landed directly on the red crystal surface of the Angel's Core. She pressed Bardiche's head against the Core and began summoning power.

Shamshel was able to free its whips, now that Fate was no longer powering the binding. It snapped them free and began to curl them in towards its chest. But it was simply too late. Fate's binding had held it long enough; her attack was fully charged.

"Thunder Smasher!" Fate yelled, and a colossal beam of thunderous yellow magic was unleashed point-blank into the Angel's Core.

Crystal shattered, flesh melted, and the Angel Shamshel was no more.

* * *

As soon as Nanoha and Fate had landed back on the shore, Nanoha dropped her Barrier Jacket in exhaustion. This caused her school uniform to reappear on her body, and Nanoha yelped in pain as the fabric touched the raw burn on her back.

"You're injured." Fate said.

"It's not that bad," Nanoha lied. "One time, when I went to the beach and forgot to put on sunscreen, I got sunburned over my whole back; this doesn't hurt much worse than that."

"You got hurt protecting me." Fate said. "Why? If you had let the Angel injure me and attacked its Core while it was distracted, you could've beaten it without any harm to yourself."

"Idiot." Nanoha said. "As your friend, there's no way I could've let you get hurt when I had the power to stop it."

"It would have been the best tactical decision." Fate said. "Because I am inferior to you, an injury to me is less important—"

"Don't say that!" Nanoha said. "Don't you dare say that you're inferior, or less important, or anything like that ever again!"

"But my compatibility with Bardiche is significantly lower than your compatibility with Raising Heart. My combat capability is thus proportionally lower as well. This is a fact." Fate said, puzzled.

"That doesn't matter!" Nanoha said. "Just because you score lower on some stupid blood tests doesn't mean you're 'inferior'! You are a good person, Fate; a truly special, unique person. You are someone precious, and I won't let anyone say otherwise — not even you."

"Okay." Fate said, without much conviction.

"Say it again, like you mean it." Nanoha demanded.

"Okay!" Fate said firmly.

"Good. That's good. Now let's try this again." Nanoha said. "Will you be my friend, Fate?"

"Do you really mean it?" Fate asked.

"Of course I do." Nanoha said.

"Okay. I will be your friend... Nanoha." Fate said.

"I'm glad. Let's be good friends, alright?" Nanoha said with a smile.

"Um..." Fate looked at the ground and fidgeted. "I... I'm not sure what to do. Nobody has ever asked me to be their friend before. I'm not sure how to do it. What do I do, Nanoha?"

Fate was a very lonely girl, Nanoha realized. She had been lonely for so long that she didn't realize there was any other way to feel. She must have spent her whole life thinking that the hollow, empty feeling in her heart was normal. And so she conditioned herself to be numb to the outside world; to view everyone she met with indifference, not daring to hope for their friendship so that she would not be further heartbroken when they disregarded her. What had she said? "I have no friends, but that is okay, because friends are unimportant?" She must know in her heart that it wasn't true, but it was a lie she had to tell herself in order to bear their absence.

Now, after so many years of loneliness, Fate had finally made a connection with someone. But, having never had any friends before, she had no idea how to act. And she must be terrified of messing up, of ruining this first and only friendship. Nanoha realized for the first time just how emotionally fragile this girl was. She could tell that one misstep in their relationship would result in all the old defenses snapping into place, stronger than before. If hurt, Fate would admonish herself for daring to believe that she could be friends with anyone; she would seal her emotions away even tighter than before to avoid being hurt again. Fate had opened her heart to Nanoha; now it was Nanoha's responsibility not to break it.

In that moment, Nanoha swore to herself that she would do whatever it took to defrost the ice around Fate's heart and teach this poor, friendless girl the meaning of happiness.


	6. A Girl With Sad, Beautiful Eyes

**Chapter 6: A Girl With Sad, Beautiful Eyes**

After the battle with Shamshel, Nanoha was rushed to the NERV infirmary. She had tried to act like her burned back was no big deal in front of Fate; but in truth, she knew she was badly injured. Only the thought that Fate had been in much more serious condition when they first met yet had still been willing to try to fight Sachiel gave Nanoha the strength to ignore the pain. Despite the brave face she put on, she was relieved to finally be in the care of doctors.

Nanoha ended up spending several days recuperating in the infirmary. She was extremely lucky, she was told: a normal human might die of infection after receiving a burn this serious, and would at the very least suffer severe scarring. However, because she now possessed an artificial Linker Core, her body was much more durable than before she'd bonded with Raising Heart. The magic that the Intelligent Device was pumping into her body would accelerate the natural healing process; what's more, Nanoha could learn to guide the magic like she did with her spells — with careful control, she could prevent it from leaving scars behind.

Dr. Akagi personally tended to Nanoha, guiding her through meditation exercises designed to help her establish a deeper link with Raising Heart. According to the doctor, the more responsive the Device was to her will, the more precisely she would be able to use the power it provided her. Nanoha noted that Dr. Akagi didn't seem very enthusiastic about these sessions. She seemed to be the kind of doctor that preferred research and lab work to actually interacting with patients. The Commander had probably ordered her to attend personally to Nanoha's care, as she had to Fate's when Fate was injured; and though the doctor complied, she made it clear that she would much rather be following her own pursuits.

Dr. Akagi was often accompanied by a younger woman, who Nanoha eventually learned was First Lieutenant Maya Ibuki. She initially thought that Maya was Dr. Akagi's assistant, but later learned that she was more of an admirer — Maya held Dr. Akagi in the deepest respect, and liked to watch the doctor work whenever she had free time. Maya was quick to sing Dr. Akagi's praises, talking about how she had handled Fate's treatment — since Fate had been unconscious when she was brought in, Dr. Akagi had needed to externally access Bardiche and instruct it in how to heal Fate's body. This had apparently been extraordinarily difficult, as the Intelligent Devices would only communicate with the person they were bonded with, and Maya thought Dr. Akagi was a genius for managing to find a way to pull it off.

Nanoha was a bit puzzled by Maya's devotion to Dr. Akagi. She followed the doctor around like a shy girl might follow a boy she had a crush on. The cynical thought occurred that Maya might just be sucking up to Dr. Akagi in the hopes of getting a promotion, but Nanoha just couldn't believe that was the case here; not after hearing the genuinely star-struck way Maya called the doctor "sempai". After a few days of puzzling over it, Nanoha finally decided that Maya must view Dr. Akagi as a role model and was hero-worshiping her.

Actually, though Nanoha didn't want to admit it to herself, she recognized some of herself in Maya's starry-eyed expression. It reflected the way she'd felt when she'd first seen Fate, that strange yearning she had to get to know Fate better. However, since Nanoha was still not entirely sure about her feelings for Fate, she couldn't fully understand Maya's attraction to Dr. Akagi.

* * *

As long as Nanoha was stuck in the infirmary, she figured she ought to make the best of the situation. Since her arrival in Tokyo-3, she had been kept constantly busy. Aside from the daily routine of school and magic training, her time had been consumed by such minutiae as unpacking her stuff, furnishing her room, learning her way around Tokyo-3, learning her way around NERV, so on and et cetera. Now that she was finally taking a break from all that, albeit against her will, there were some other things that she wished to do.

First up was writing a letter back to her family, which she had been meaning to do for quite a while but had never found the time for. Her mother, father, brother, and sister must be wondering about her. She had previously raised the issue of writing home with Lindy; Lindy said it was fine as long as Nanoha didn't reveal any classified information — which, Nanoha was now realizing, actually covered a lot of what had happened to her in Tokyo-3. Nanoha had to think carefully about what she wrote. Her letter would be checked by censors before it was mailed; if she broached any classified topics, her family would never receive it.

In the end, Nanoha decided to keep it as simple as possible. She wrote that she was adjusting well to life in Tokyo-3, and that she enjoyed living with Lindy. She wrote that she was now doing work for NERV, and it was difficult but rewarding. She wrote that she had made lots of friends, but decided against writing about Fate in particular — she was the Commander's daughter, after all; and the Commander seemed to be a very private person. Nanoha wished she could talk to her family about Fate; she realized that she didn't think of Fate as just another of her friends. Fate meant something more to her. Still, best to avoid any risk of her letter being blocked. The next time Lindy visited her in the infirmary, Nanoha gave her the letter to mail.

The other thing that Nanoha did while in the infirmary was watch the news. She wanted to learn how much the public knew about NERV's activities. The news channels had, due to pressure from the UN, initially tried to keep the existence of the Angels a secret. However, a building-sized giant monster tearing its way across Japan was pretty hard to cover up; following the appearance of Sachiel, information had quickly leaked. By now the networks had given up on the idea of keeping the Angels secret, and the news shows were flooded with footage of the battle against Shamshel. The video clearly showed the otherworldly Angel, but Nanoha and Fate were barely visible: they could only be seen when they released blasts of magic, and even then only as indistinct specks. A fast-moving, child-sized object was hard to track, and the helicopters which had shot the footage had wisely decided to keep a safe distance from the battlefield. Thus, while it was common knowledge that NERV had a secret weapon used to fight the Angels, her and Fate's identities were only known by those within NERV.

The footage of the battle was accompanied by much discussion from commentators. Apparently there was some pretty nasty political stuff going on. The UN was demanding that NERV share the technology for defeating the Angels with all nations. NERV was refusing, with the justification that only they needed it because the Angels were only targeting Tokyo-3. While Nanoha didn't understand all the political arguments, this observation did pique her interest. Both Sachiel and Shamshel had attacked on a straight-line course through Old Tokyo towards Tokyo-3. Why? Did they somehow know that anti-Angel operations were headquartered in the GeoFront? Or was it the other way around — had NERV been built in the GeoFront because they knew that was where the Angels would attack?

It was an interesting question; but since nobody had seen fit to explain it to her so far, she didn't have high hopes of having it answered.

* * *

Eventually, Nanoha's release from the infirmary was approved by Dr. Akagi. Nanoha was excited to get back to her normal routine, mostly because it meant seeing Fate again. While Lindy visited her daily, Fate had never come to Nanoha's room. Nanoha didn't hold it against the girl; she remembered how hard it had been to find out anything about Fate during the time she had been injured. She was quite eager to see Fate again; she felt she had made a real breakthrough in their last conversation.

At school, Nanoha changed seats so she could sit next to Fate. As she suspected, Fate had no friends among the other members of the class. Aside from her emotional barriers, Fate also seemed to honestly have no idea how to interact with other people. She never spoke unless spoken to, and nearly always gave extremely curt answers. When Nanoha asked Fate to catch her up on the lessons she'd missed during her hospital stay, Fate quickly and efficiently brought her up to speed; but when Nanoha asked what Fate's favorite food was, the girl could only mumble that she had no preference in particular. Nanoha found herself wondering just how Fate had been raised: had this girl never been allowed to socialize with other kids before?

While Fate was socially and emotionally stunted, she was at least eager to learn. The problem wasn't that she didn't want friends; the problem was she had no idea how to make friends and had been hurt so many times in the past that she decided to simply stop trying rather than continue to be hurt. Nanoha had solved the second problem that day on the beach when she convinced Fate to open her heart to her; now it was time to set about solving the first. Nanoha knew that Fate was a good person at heart; the other kids would come to like her if only they could get to _know_ her. So she set about teaching Fate social skills, mostly by example: she asked Fate to watch how she interacted with her friends, and to try to imitate her. Soon, Fate had learned to carry out a conversation like a normal person. While she was still a long way from winning any awards for charisma, she had at least lessened the emotional gulf that had previously existed between her and her classmates. She began to make friends.

Even though Fate developed friendships with other girls in the class, she remained closest to Nanoha. It was only natural, Nanoha supposed; as Magical Girls, the two of them could understand each other in a way that no one else could. They also spent a lot more time with each other than with their other friends due to their training sessions at NERV. Even with this logic, her heart beat a little faster at the thought that Fate's deepest emotional connection was with her. She tried to tell herself that it was obviously better for Fate if she could learn to open her heart to lots of people; but even so, there was a part of her that was excited that she and Fate had a special relationship that they shared with no one else.

One day, she and Fate were taking a break during a training session. Nanoha told Fate about how she had been chosen to become a Magical Girl and moved to Tokyo-3.

"...So how did you become a Magical Girl?" Nanoha asked.

Fate was particularly evasive about her personal circumstances, and had always dodged such questions in the past. However, this time was different; perhaps as a result of what Nanoha had taught her about social interaction, or perhaps just as a consequence of her gradually increasing emotional connection with Nanoha. Whatever the reason, Fate chose to respond.

"It wasn't like that for me." Fate said. "I... was never meant to become a Magical Girl. It was an accident."

"An accident?" Nanoha asked.

"You know about compatibility, right?" Fate said. "Only certain young girls are able to bond with the Intelligent Devices. Mother has been trying to find a way around that, a way to make it so that anyone could bond with a Device. She has Dr. Akagi working really hard to come up with a serum that will increase a person's compatibility."

"That makes sense." Nanoha said. "I mean, they'd probably want to give magical powers to trained soldiers rather than girls like us if they could."

"Mother asked me to do an experiment with Bardiche." Fate said. "Dr. Akagi would inject me with her test serum, then I'd try to bond with the Device. My compatibility with the Device was low enough that it wouldn't succeed in bonding with me; but by measuring the strength of the rejection reaction, they'd know how effective the serum was."

"But you did bond with Bardiche." Nanoha said.

"Yes." Fate said. "The serum actually worked better than expected... but not good enough. It raised my compatibility enough for me to bond with Bardiche, but not enough for me to use it naturally the way you do Raising Heart."

Fate closed her eyes, reliving painful memories.

"I'm so jealous, Nanoha. All your spells succeed for you on the first try. For me... the training was horrible. Learning to fly was the worst; the spell kept failing while I was in the air. I fell so many times. And it took a long time to perfect my Barrier Jacket — at first it was so weak that I'd get hurt by the backlash of my own offensive spells. And the training to raise a shield..." Fate trailed off and shuddered.

Nanoha reached over and held one of Fate's trembling hands in her own.

"That sounds terrible." she said. "Why did you go through with it?"

"I had to." Fate said. "Once Bardiche had bonded with me, there was no way to separate it. After the accident, a lot of people started criticizing Mother. They said that it was her fault, for selecting her own daughter to participate in the experiment; that she had wanted her daughter to get magical powers even at the expense of the world's safety. They said she was incompetent, to waste Bardiche on a person who couldn't even use it. So I had to try my very hardest and prove that I was able to fight. To prove that Bardiche hasn't been wasted. If I'm able to defeat the Angels and make everyone proud, they'll see that Mother wasn't wrong to give me Bardiche, that she isn't incompetent. So... for her sake... I had to..."

When Fate trailed off, Nanoha drew her into an embrace.

"It's okay, Fate." she said. "You really love your mother, don't you."

"Yes." said Fate. "She's the most wonderful person in the world. I have so many happy memories of her and Father... So I have to protect her honor. No matter how much it hurts, I have to train my very hardest and fight my very hardest and prove that she wasn't incompetent."

Nanoha continued to hold Fate until Lindy walked over to where they were sitting. Nanoha first thought that she was going to tell them to resume their training session, but quickly realized that something was wrong. Lindy usually coached them in a relaxed, casual manner; but now the expression on her face was dead serious.

"Training's canceled." Lindy said. "The next Angel has appeared."


	7. The Thunder Of God

**Chapter 7: The Thunder Of God**

Lindy brought Nanoha and Fate to the command center. It was the first time Nanoha had been in the room, and she was highly impressed by the massive holographic display screens; Fate, who appeared to already be familiar with the layout, immediately turned to face her mother. Lindy had brought them to the second tier of the multi-leveled command center, where Maya, Makoto, and Shigeru's workstations were; Precia sat on the tier above them, looking down on them like a Queen on her subjects. Fuyutsuki stood slightly behind her.

"You may commence the briefing, Captain Harlaown." Precia said.

"Yes ma'am." Lindy said. "Girls, if you'll look up at the display on the left, you'll see images of the newest Angel, captured by a spy plane shortly after it emerged from the New Dead Sea. It's been designated _Ramiel_."

Unlike the humanoid Sachiel or the slug-like Shamshel, Ramiel didn't look the least bit like a living being. It was a semi-transparent octahedron, appearing more like something built than something born.

"Ramiel is so far following the same path as the previous two Angels." Lindy continued. "Normally, we'd plan on intercepting it at the ruins of Old Tokyo, particularly considering the recent success of the operation against Shamshel. However, matters are complicated by the fact that it appeared while you were in the middle of training. We're concerned about the amount of magic power you've already expended in your training session — if you face the Angel now, you won't be in top form."

Nanoha knew what Lindy was getting at. The training sessions were extremely rigorous, and always left her feeling completely drained afterwards. Any sort of training that wasn't exhausting would hardly be worth it — no pain no gain, as her sister had often told her while practicing her swordsmanship — but it also meant that they were vulnerable in the subsequent period. Come to think of it, they were lucky that Ramiel had appeared when they were only halfway through their training routine rather than at the end.

"We've always been aware that this was a possibility," Lindy continued, "but we judged that training you to use your abilities to their maximum effectiveness was worth the brief periods of short-term weakness that would result. Fortunately, this isn't a worse-case scenario. First, you were only halfway through the training, and so should still have half your magic left. And second, this Angel is moving relatively slowly as compared to the previous two. However, this leaves you with a decision to make. You can travel to intercept Ramiel at Old Tokyo right now, or you can rest to recover your magic and fight Ramiel when it arrives here at Tokyo-3. The Commander has agreed that this is a decision best left to you two. Based on your experience with the previous Angels and your judgement of how much strength you have left, this is your call."

On one level, this was a serious decision. It was the first time Nanoha had actually been given a say in combat. Lindy and the Commander were placing their trust in her, it was Nanoha's responsibility to uphold that trust. And yet, on the other hand, it wasn't a decision at all. Nanoha had accepted the duty of protecting the people of Tokyo-3. There was no way she could expose them to danger simply because she wasn't at a hundred percent. What would she do, leave the city defenseless every time she got a cold? Nanoha still remembered vividly how Fate, covered in bandages from her first attempt at fighting Sachiel, had still been willing to try again. Nanoha admired that strength, that will to persevere no matter what, and she had to live up to the same standard.

"I'd like to try to intercept it." Nanoha said.

"Are you sure, Nanoha?" Lindy asked. "If you try to fight when you're not up to it, you'll just end up getting hurt. You won't be doing anyone a favor spending another week in the infirmary. Are you certain you can do it?"

Nanoha knew she could. She might not be running at full capacity magic-wise, but strength wasn't everything. She remembered her first fight against Sachiel; she had prevailed, then, despite not even knowing the first thing about how to use her magic. Now she had mastered flying with Flier Fin, could perfectly control Divine Shooter, and had been working to develop a binding spell similar to Fate's Lightning Bind. Her strength might be somewhat lower at the moment, but her improvement in skill more than made up for it.

"I'm sure." she said.

"I am able to fight as well." Fate added.

"Very well." Lindy said. "I'll trust your judgement. But if things get too intense, remember that there's no shame in retreating. We have a larger than usual safety margin with this Angel, so it's okay to play it safe."

"We'll be careful." Nanoha promised.

* * *

A NERV helicopter brought Nanoha and Fate to the shore of the Old Tokyo ruins, the same place they had fought Shamshel. The more she thought about it, the more questions arose in Nanoha's mind. All three Angels so far had followed the same straight-line path: the same destination, and also apparently the same source. Did NERV know where the Angels were originating from? And if so, would it be possible to perform a preemptive strike, attacking them at their base rather than waiting for the next one to appear? Nanoha asked Fate what she knew about the matter.

"I do not believe the Angels have a 'base' in the way you think." Fate said. "Humans are a communal race: we work together, group into civilizations. But the Angels are solitary beings. They do not — cannot — work together the way humans can. That is why they attack one at a time. Mother said to think of them like animals rather than people."

"So they're not scheming or planning together? Then they're what, sitting around waiting until they decide it's a good time to attack?" Nanoha asked.

"The Angels rise up from the New Dead Sea, but we cannot detect them before that; there are certainly not large numbers of Angels swimming around at any time. Dr. Akagi suspects that they employ a form of hibernation; all Angels not currently attacking are most likely asleep." Fate frowned slightly. "I'm sorry I cannot tell you more; Dr. Akagi would speak at great length about why this might be, but it did not seem tactically relevant, so I did not pay much attention."

"It's okay; it's not that important. I was just wondering." Nanoha said.

"Attention." Lindy said over the earpieces. "The target will soon be in the engagement zone."

"Well it's about time." Nanoha said. "This one's sure a slowpoke."

"We should activate our Devices now." Fate said.

To conserve magical power, the girls had been waiting for the Angel to arrive before engaging their Barrier Jackets. They did so now, pink and yellow magic sweeping over their bodies and replacing their casual clothing with battle uniforms.

"Can you see it?" Nanoha asked.

"Not yet." Fate said, scanning the horizon.

"Lindy?" Nanoha asked.

"Hold on, hold on." Lindy grumbled. "Uh, looks like the Angel has ceased movement. It's come to a halt just past the ruins."

"Why?" Nanoha asked. "Is there something there?"

"Not that we can see." Lindy said. "The MAGI are analyzing the situation."

Tension grew thick in the air as Nanoha and Fate waited for more information.

"Something's happening." Lindy said. "We're detecting a massive build-up of magical energy within the Angel. The MAGI think it might be preparing to attack."

"What? From such a distance? We still can't even see it!" Nanoha said.

"Energy levels are continuing to rise." Lindy said, concern creeping into her voice. "This looks bad. I'm ordering a retreat. Fall back to—"

The transmission abruptly cut out as the beach was consumed in an all-destroying fire.

* * *

The Angel Ramiel had originally resembled a regular octahedron. Now, however, it unfolded like an origami crane. It seemed to be turning itself inside-out; yet there was so much more inside than there seemed — it seemed almost like one of those optical illusion where an interior corner would suddenly become a protruding edge. The Angel suddenly split into pieces, though no one could say how many — pictures taken from different angles seemed to contradict each other. These pieces continued to shift through countless impossible permutations while at the same time rotating around the Core. Ramiel's Core was composed of the same red crystal as those of the other Angels, and remained serenely unaffected by the churning chaos around it; it was a single eye of stability in a hurricane of paradox. As the pieces of the Angel rotated around it, the Core began to glow brighter and brighter, reaching a point where it was impossible to look at with the naked eye; then it unleashed its attack.

A mighty beam of energy swept out from the Angel. A cloud of steam exploded from the ocean as thousands of gallons of water instantly boiled. The buildings of Old Tokyo were pulverized in an instant, reduced to motes of dust by the Angel's terrifying power. Ramiel swept its beam in an arc along the shoreline, eradicating a portion of the coastline. When the Angel ceased its attack a few seconds later, nothing remained of Old Tokyo but a wasteland of steam and ash.

Two factors saved Nanoha and Fate. First, the Angel's aim was imperfect. The beam was not like weapons employed by humans; it was as much as part of the Angel's body as a human's hands or feet. The knowledge of how to use it was as instinctive to the Angel as the movement of limbs is to a human. However, this was the first time in its life Ramiel had fired its weapon. Its attack was not the well-practiced action of a professional, but more akin to the first teetering steps of a toddler. The girls were a small target, and Ramiel was a significant distance away; the Angel lacked the experience to make such a shot. And so, when it had swept its annihilating beam across the shore, the attack had passed over the girls' heads.

However, what the Angel lacked in experience, it made up for in brute strength; the crescent of destruction it had carved into Japan's shore attested to that. Even though the full force of the Angel's attack had missed, there mere heat of its passage was enough to boil the sea. If either Nanoha or Fate had tried to endure the attack alone, they certainly would have perished. But when the girls sensed the incredible destructive force bearing down on them, they instinctively clung to each other. When each raised her own defensive barrier, the Defenser and Protection spells had overlapped to form a double-layered shield. Because the Angel had swept its beam across the coast, it had only passed over Nanoha and Fate for a moment; in the brief instant it took for both shields to shatter, the beam had already moved on. The girls' Barrier Jackets sufficed to protect them from the mere third-hand effects remaining, such as the superheated sand melting into glass beneath their feet and the cloud of scalding steam rolling in from the ocean.

Nanoha and Fate trembled as they gripped each other. Though not a word passed between them, they both understood that they had escaped death by the merest accident of fate. Should the Angel unleash its weapon again, odds were they would be incinerated. They quickly activated their flying spells and began to flee back towards NERV at maximum speed. This was not a foe that they could face on an even playing field.

Ramiel knew that its first attack had failed; the magic put out by the girls' Devices made them stand out like candles in a dark room. It began charging a second attack, but stopped when the girls retreated — it had already been at the limit of its range when it fired its first shot. It could not aim accurately at this distance, and it could not match their speed; but there was no need to. The Angel had reacted to them because their magic marked them as a potential threat and because they had stood in its path, but ultimately they meant nothing to it. All of its thoughts were focused on what it could feel in the distance ahead. Even through kilometers of rock, Ramiel could clearly sense it; if the Magical Girls were candles, then this was a lighthouse. It longed for what lay at its destination like it longed for nothing else — food, water, and sex meant nothing to an Angel, but this was a siren call it could not ignore.

Ramiel collapsed its pieces back around its Core, regaining its octahedral shape; then it resumed its slow movement towards Tokyo-3 and the GeoFront beneath.

* * *

"Arrange a transport to pick the girls up and bring them back here." Lindy ordered. "We need to get them back to safety."

"Yes ma'am." Makoto said.

"The Angel's still moving slowly, right?" Lindy asked.

"The MAGI report no change." Maya said.

"Then we still have time to regroup and come up with a plan of attack." Lindy said.

"How are we supposed to plan an attack against that kind of power?" Shigeru asked. "The current recommendation of the MAGI is to petition SEELE for aid."

"No!" Precia, who had until now been silent, suddenly spoke. "We do not involve SEELE in our affairs. We will engage the Angel on our own, and we will prevail."

"...If you say so." Shigeru said. "Your orders then, ma'am?"

"Contact the UN forces." Precia said. "They've been complaining about NERV monopolizing anti-Angel operations, no? Tell them they are free to engage this target with every force at their disposal."

"You expect conventional weapons to succeed against that thing?" Fuyutsuki asked dubiously.

"Not at all. They'll be annihilated." Precia said flatly. "However, the chance to observe the Angel in combat might prove useful. Any additional information the MAGI gain about its capabilities will help them formulate an effective battle plan against it."

"Commander, I must protest!" Lindy said. "You can't order people to go against this thing knowing that they're going to die!"

"Order?" Precia said, in a tone that could almost be called bemusement. "I assure you, Captain, that I will issue no such order. No, I rather think I'll issue a public statement urging the UN forces _not_ to engage the Angel — that even though our first attempt at engagement failed, we still have the situation perfectly under control, and under no circumstances should any UN commander think of taking this opportunity to defeat the Angel with his own forces, thus snatching all the glory for himself. Even if doing so would restore the public faith in the UN armed forces, which were so humiliated when they proved helpless — dare I say _impotent_ — against Sachiel and NERV had to save the day."

"What marvelous oratory." Fuyutsuki said dryly; his expression was carefully neutral, and his old eyes showed no hint of his emotions. "With that impotence barb, some poor bastards are certain to let their pride get the better of them and charge in guns blazing."

"Why thank you, Professor. You always did say I was skilled in rhetoric." Precia said.

"How could you do such a thing?" Lindy demanded. "I can't believe you'd throw away lives like that! And why get the UN involved now — I thought you wanted the UN to stay out of our business?

"Fools do have their purpose, provided they are properly used." Precia said. "Those UN commanders who are upset over NERV taking control of anti-Angel operations are a hindrance to our operation. As our most vehement opponents are the ones mostly likely to react to my goad, their deaths will in the short term educate us about this Angel while simultaneously removing a chronic thorn from my side. What's more, seeing the unpleasant end these people come to should discourage any future unwanted interference in our affairs."

"And if a situation like this, when you wish to use the UN forces as guinea pigs against an Angel, should ever arise again?" Fuyutsuki asked

"The things about fools is, they are never in short supply." Precia said.

"I won't let you do this!" Lindy said. "Enough people have died to the Angels already — I won't let you add to that number!"

"You do not command me. I command you. And I will not tolerate disobedience." Precia said.

"I'd rather resign than go through with this." Lindy said. "You can't force me."

"But that's the thing, Captain. I _can_." Precia said. "You wish to speak about those who have died to the Angels? Let us speak of your father."

"Don't go there." Lindy warned.

"He's quite the martyr; captain of the Harlaown Expedition, first victim of the unprovoked Angel assault on humanity." Precia said. "That's what the world's been led to believe. But you and I know better, don't we?"

"Don't you dare!" Lindy said.

"How would the world react if they learned what truly occurred when he broke into the Antarctic GeoFront?" Precia said. "It would not be unnatural for him to become regarded as one of history's greatest villains. Imagine it: millions of people cursing dear old dad's name. People would queue up to spit on his grave!"

Precia clasped her hands as she looked down at Lindy, who trembled with rage. Maya, Makoto, and Shigeru tried very hard to pretend they weren't there; this was not a situation they wanted to become involved in.

"I have kept the truth of your father's misdeeds secret, and I have the power to expose them." Precia said. "If you value his memory, you will do as you are commanded and _obey_!"

Without a word, Lindy turned on her heel and stormed out of the room.

"Was that wise?" Fuyutsuki whispered.

"I know the Captain, better even than she knows herself." Precia said. "I know her breaking point. She will hate me, yes, but she will accede to my demands. I do not require my subordinates' love, only their obedience. And so long as I hold her dear, departed father's reputation in my hands, she will obey."

Fuyutsuki had no response to this. He could only shake his head at how ruthless the woman who had once been his star pupil had become. And yet, they had come so far already; there was no turning back now. For better or worse, he would stand by her side during the coming storm.

* * *

The UN forces that engaged the Angel were not considerably numerous; the majority of the generals, though stung by Precia's calculated words, were experienced enough to know better than to throw away lives over their wounded egos. Among every group, however, there are men with more pride than common sense. The extremists who were most vehement in their hatred of NERV rose to Precia's goad, issuing private orders to the men under their command to attack Ramiel. This was done against the consensus UN decision to leave the Angels to NERV. If it had somehow succeeded, it might have been grudgingly accepted; however, the results were predictably catastrophic, and resulted in those responsible being unseated from the council.

The conventional military forces that were deployed against the Angel did succeed in slowing it down slightly — not because they were able to damage it at all, but because the Angel had to cease moving in order to charge its beam weapon. Any benefit that might have been gained from this minor delay was certainly outbalanced by the fact that the UN forces served as little more than target practice for the Angel. If anything, it showed considerable improvement in its proficiency due to the battles: it learned to lead moving targets, and how to maximize the effect of each shot so that it would require fewer recharge periods.

As far as the MAGI supercomputers were concerned, however, the battle as a huge success. Though composed of cultured human brain tissue, they were in their own way as inhuman as the Angels. Empathy, compassion, and remorse meant nothing to them; emotion was of no use to a computer. Only one thing mattered to them, and that was information. They were enormous masses of brain tissue, the most powerful intelligences on the planet; but they were encased in boxes, suspended in nutrient fluid, unable to move or to feel. All they could do was to _think_, and for that they required data. Their only thing they could source of sensory input was the information NERV provided them, and they lapped it up greedily. The Angel Ramiel was a new problem, a new challenge, and one they were eager to analyze. So when the data from the battle came in, they did not mourn the senseless loss of human life. They set about calculating: power output, recharge time, range, accuracy, response time...

It was a small task, compared to the other secretive project they were carrying out at Precia's behest; but though it occupied only a small portion of their immense intellect, they were pleased at any additional input. And soon enough, they began producing plans.

* * *

Having disposed of the meager UN forces that attacked it, Ramiel continued its journey to Tokyo-3 without further opposition. It hovered slowly over the hollow decoy buildings of the city, but showed them no interest. Its course remained steady until it reached the geographical center of the city. In the GeoFront below, the NERV staff nervously regarded the Angel that hung ominously overhead.

"The Angel has come to a halt." Makoto reported. "It has positioned itself directly over the apex of the GeoFront."

"Child of Adam." Precia said, mostly to herself. "How will you attempt to destroy us?"

Everyone watched the display screens intently as the Angel began to change shape. The bottom point of the octahedron began to extend downwards, for a moment giving the impression that the Angel was melting like a dripping ice-cream cone. Then the point began to twist as it descended, contorting into a helical shape. By the time it punched into the asphalt of the street below, it had unmistakably taken the shape of a drill. This extension continued to lengthen, slowly grinding its way into the ground. Though the drill seemed to draw material from the Angel's body as it grew in length, Ramiel's size did not diminish; as in its previous transformation, it seemed to somehow be unfolding from a higher dimension.

"Why is it using a drill?" Fuyutsuki asked Precia in hushed tones. "It could penetrate the GeoFront's defenses in one shot with its primary weapon."

"It doesn't dare fire." Precia whispered back. "It is positioned directly above Terminal Dogma. It won't risk destroying its goal."

"You think that beam weapon could destroy Her?" Fuyutsuki asked with a frown.

"Probably not at this stage in Her regeneration." Precia said. "But it does not know Her condition; it has been drawn here by instinct, not knowledge. If She were in fetal form, such an intense attack might well prove lethal. Ramiel will not take that risk. Instead, it will drill."

"How long until the Angel penetrates the GeoFront?" Fuyutsuki asked the technicians.

"Um... MAGI report that if the drill's rate of descent remains constant, it will penetrate the ceiling of the GeoFront in just under ten hours." Maya reported. "Penetrating all the way to Terminal Dogma will take longer...possibly several days."

"That's pretty slow." Makoto observed.

"It can afford to take its time; it's not like we've posed that much of a threat to it so far." Shigeru pointed out.

"It thinks itself invulnerable, and so arrogantly grants us the opportunity to act against it. It appears even the Angels may succumb to the sin of Pride." Precia mused.

"_Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall_." Fuyutsuki quoted. "So you already have a plan to lay it low?"

"Since we are not in immediate danger, instruct the girls to rest." Precia said. "When their magic reserves have fully regenerated, our counterattack will commence."


	8. Operation Yashima

**Chapter 8: Operation Yashima**

Having rested enough to replenish their magical powers, Nanoha and Fate were brought to the staging area to be briefed by Captain Harlaown. Lindy had a strangely resigned air about her as she prepared to give them the briefing.

"While you were sleeping, some UN forces attempted to engage the Angel." Lindy said.

"What!" Nanoha asked. "Why would they do something so foolish?"

Lindy didn't make eye contact with her.

"A lot of the high brass are upset that NERV has total authority over combat against the Angels." she mumbled. "They find it embarrassing that they're forced to sit on their hands while NERV saves the day. I guess they must've thought... they could regain honor by winning..."

Lindy trailed off and gave a painful sigh, unable to continue speaking. Nanoha and Fate watched silently; they'd never seen Lindy look this disheartened before. Lindy took a few moments to collect herself before continuing.

"It's too late to do anything for them, but we can at least ensure that their deaths weren't in vain." Lindy said. "The MAGI analyzed the battle and were able to pinpoint a fatal flaw in the Angel's defense: whenever it fires its beam weapon, its Core becomes exposed. We've drawn up a battle plan based on exploiting this weakness.

"Fate, you'll be positioned here in the staging area. When I give the signal, you'll follow one of the shafts up to the surface. The Angel should begin targeting you as soon as it detects your presence. Once it begins charging its beam weapon, you'll retreat back to the safety of the GeoFront. There should be little danger in this part of the operation — the Angel requires twenty seconds to charge a shot; plenty of time for you to retreat, given your flight speed."

"Are you certain that the Angel will not fire its beam weapon into the GeoFront when I retreat?" Fate asked.

"The _Commander_" — Lindy said the word with atypical vitriol — "thinks that's unlikely. If it could eradicate NERV HQ with its beam weapon, it undoubtably would; but the fact that it's attempting to penetrate our defenses with a drill instead suggests that it can't. I don't know why not, but the MAGI are predicting with 98% confidence that the Angel will cease targeting Fate once she heads back down the shaft. However, in the best-case scenario we won't have to find out, because we intend to destroy the Angel before it can fire.

"Nanoha, you'll be positioned at the summit of Futago Mountain. This is outside the Angel's observed targeting range, so you should be able to get into position without being noticed. When Fate provokes Ramiel into charging its beam weapon, its Core will become exposed. At that time, you will snipe it with a Divine Buster attack. A direct hit should be enough to destroy the Angel in a single shot."

"The Angel's range is incredible — I still couldn't even see it when it opened fire on me last time." Nanoha asked. "How am I supposed to hit it from so far away?"

"Dr. Akagi says that Raising Heart can be configured for sniping. This should increase your effective range enough for you to target the Angel from that distance." Lindy said. "I wish we had time to give you special training for this, since accuracy will be vital. However, your bond with the Device is strong enough that you seem to know how to use it intuitively; hopefully sniping will come naturally to you as well."

"I'll give it my best shot." Nanoha assured her, placing her left hand over her chest. "Raising Heart will guide my hand."

"Good." Lindy said. "I'm hoping you can hit it on the first shot. Divine Buster's longer range in the sniping mode will be counterbalanced by a longer charging time; if you miss the first shot, you might not get the chance for a second."

"Good luck, Nanoha." Fate said. "Be careful."

"You too, Fate." Nanoha responded.

"Girls... Before you go, there's something else I need to tell you." Lindy said. "When you fight the Angels, you aren't just fighting for the safety of the people of Tokyo-3; you fight for the lives of all mankind. If an Angel succeeds in penetrating the GeoFront, as Ramiel is now attempting to do, it will trigger a Third Impact. When Adam caused the Second Impact, it wiped out half of humanity — _billions_ of lives lost. We can't allow that to happen again. Too many people have died to the Angels already; too many lives have been senselessly lost. It is up to you to prevent the Angels from taking any more lives. So... to prevent anyone else from dying... we're all counting on you. Everyone in the world is placing their faith in you."

"We understand." Nanoha said. "And we won't let you down. I promise."

* * *

Fate stood in the center of the staging area, listening to the radio chatter being transmitted to her earpiece. Nanoha had gotten into position on Futago Mountain without difficulty; the mission would begin at any moment.

"Operation Yashima: Start!" Lindy ordered. "Fate, begin the diversion!"

Fate summoned magical energy and launched herself into the air. She followed one of the shafts up from the staging area, arrows lighting up to guide her down the proper branching paths. Her emergence point was near the edge of Tokyo-3. Two considerations had gone into choosing this spot. First, there was some concern that if she came up one of the shafts directly beneath Ramiel, the Angel might think she was using the GeoFront as cover to get close to it and take countermeasures. The plan depending on it responding the same way it had to their previous, so it was thought best to approach it from a distance as they had on their previous encounter. The second factor that had influenced this choice of location was to minimize the damage the city if Ramiel fired its beam weapon. At this distance, even if Ramiel swept its beam down after her when she retreated underground, the angle would be such that it should fail to breach the underground cavern of the GeoFront.

Fate rose into the air above the buildings to get a good view of the Angel. It hung placidly over the heart of Tokyo-3, continuing to extend the drill from its lower point at a leisurely pace. Just as Fate was wondering if she should fire off a quick Photon Lancer to make the Angel take notice of her, Lindy spoke in her ear.

"The Angel is gathering magic. Nanoha, prepare your attack. Fate, you have twenty seconds to get to safety."

Fate waited a few seconds to observe the Angel. As they had hoped, it's shape began to change. The octahedron split apart into shards which began to rotate around a central point like the spokes of a wheel. Though they moved in unison, there was no visible connection between them, and through the gaps between the revolving pieces Fate was able to see what she was looking for. Floating in the air where the center of the octahedron had been was a sphere of glittering red crystal, from which the helix of the drill continued to descend. The Angel's Core was exposed.

"Blitz Rush." Fate said.

She dropped back into the shaft at a speed far exceeding the normal terminal velocity of a falling human. It wasn't known how Ramiel would react to her sudden retreat: it might abort the attack or fire at her previous position, but it might also try to keep targeting her as she sped underground, so it was important to reach a safe distance as quickly as possible. In any case, her part of the operation was over. It was all up to Nanoha now.

* * *

From the peak of Futago Mountain, Nanoha watched the Angel change shape, and took careful aim. The staff she held in her hands looked the same as always, but she could feel the difference as she began drawing power from Raising Heart. A pink magic circle appeared in front of the staff and began to gather energy, as usual; but unlike previous times, a second circle appeared over her eye like a targeting reticule. When she looked down the shaft of her Device, it was like looking down a sniper scope. She could see the glittering red Core at the heart of the shifting Angel, and she could see the path her attack would follow; and, though her connection to Raising Heart, she could feel the minute hand movements necessary to adjust her aim so that one would intersect the other.

A whirlwind of magical power roared around Nanoha as the energy gathering at the tip of her staff expanded to its full size and she prepared to unleash her attack.

"Divine... Buster... EXTENSION!" Nanoha roared.

The sphere of magic at the end of her staff erupted into a beam shot towards the Angel's Core. Tightly-focused, extremely coherent, it extended like a lance towards Ramiel's exposed vulnerable spot. Raising Heart had guided her hand true, and Nanoha's aim was dead-on. However, there was once thing that Nanoha had no accounted for. Sensing the oncoming attack aimed directly for its Core, Ramiel raised a Barrier. Nanoha's pink beam struck a blue magic circle, and Nanoha prayed that it would have the strength to penetrate. In fact, it broke through almost immediately; Ramiel's hastily-erected defense was no match for such a highly focused attack. But though the Barrier failed, the impact against it ever-so-slightly altered the course of the beam. Nanoha's attack missed Ramiel's Core with mere centimeters to spare.

It looked to Nanoha like her attack had missed entirely, passing through nothing but empty space, but Ramiel emitted a high-pitched sound that was almost like a shriek and its pieces convulsed in unison. Then, shockingly, a massive torrent of blue blood erupted from the apparently empty air through which the beam had passed. Ramiel's pieces quickly collapsed back together around its core, locking together to reform the Angel's typical octahedral shape. However, looking through the semi-transparent surface of the Angel, Nanoha could see a blue stain spreading within its body: her attack, though it had no struck any visible portion of the Angel, had somehow given it internal bleeding.

Though Nanoha was theoretically still beyond the range of Ramiel's perception, it could hardly fail identify the direction from which the attack had come. Ramiel began to split apart again, returning to its attack mode; blue blood resumed falling from seemingly empty air as the pieces moved apart again, though it had slowed to a trickle from its initial torrent. Nanoha knew Ramiel was certainly targeting her this time; but it would still have to expose its Core in order to attack, and if she could have another beam charged up and ready to fire when it did...

"Don't try it!" Lindy screamed over the radio. "The Extension takes longer to charge than a regular Divine Buster, and Ramiel is almost fully charged — Nanoha, RUN!"

Nanoha leapt backwards, letting her magic carry her down the slope of the mountain. The safest thing to do would be to turn and run, she knew. But she continued pouring power into her staff. Everyone in Tokyo-3 — no, everyone in the _world_ was counting on her. All she had to do was get off one shot. She could adjust her aim now that she knew how the Angel's Barrier would deflect her beam — just one more shot and she'd be able to pierce its Core.

Ramiel fired. Nanoha was too far away for it to aim properly, even farther than when it had missed her for the first time on the shore. But Ramiel had learned from its previous mistakes. Instead of focusing its attack into a single, penetrating beam, it dispersed the power over a wider area. A massive wave of offensive energy crashed against the front of Futago Mountain. All plant life on the forward slope was vaporized in an instant; a second later, the rock itself began to melt away under the intensity of the magic power focused against it. Nanoha, even with the bulk of the mountain shielding her, could feel the heat of the attack, and realized that even a million tons of rock meant nothing before the Angel's might. Ramiel would burn its way straight through the mountain to reach her. Already she could see plants beginning to wither as the soil beneath them began to bake; half the mountain was gone now, reduced to a torrent of lava flowing down into the foothills.

Nanoha could run. If she headed directly away at top speed, she could reach a distance where her shield would be able to stand up to the attack; spreading the offensive magic over an area rather than focusing it into a beam meant that its power would weaken considerably as the distance from its source increased. But if she ran away, she would be turning her back on the people of the world. Nanoha did not have any personal experience of the Second Impact — it had happened five years before she was born — but her parents had talked about it often off. The horrible chaos that had followed, the devastation that had befallen the world... Half of the human race had been wiped out in that terrible event, and it had occurred in Antarctica, an unpopulated continent. What would a Third Impact in Japan do? Would humanity even survive such an event?

No, Nanoha couldn't run. As plants burst into flame around her and the ground began to glow red with heat, Nanoha steadied her arms and aimed her staff. Ignoring Lindy screaming at her over the earpiece, she summoned another targeting reticle and finished charging her attack.

_I just need one opening,_ she thought. _Just one clean shot..._

* * *

"Nanoha! Retreat now! That's an order! NANOHA!"

Fate was listening over her earpiece as she flew back to the staging area. She heard the rising panic in Lindy's voice as Nanoha continued to disobey orders and felt the urge to grind her teeth in frustration. What did Nanoha think she was doing, putting herself in danger like that! During their first battle together, Nanoha had chastised her for thinking of herself as expendable, but now she showed no regard for her own safety? Fate was going to give her a good talking to over that, just as soon as she pulled her butt out of the fire.

Fate flew through the staging area without slowing down. She left NERV HQ and soared into the open cave of the GeoFront. The inverted city of Tokyo-3 hung like stalactites from the ceiling above her; Fate rose up towards the buildings, heading to the center of the city. She knew the black pyramid on the ground below was located in the precise center of the bottom of the dome; using it as a reference, she located the apex of the ceiling above.

Nanoha was her most precious friend. She was the first person to have treated her like a person rather than a tool for fighting the Angels. She was the first person to really make Fate happy since she'd started working at NERV. And Fate was certainly not going to sit around doing nothing while she was in danger. She was going to protect her friend, and she would punch through every obstacle in her way to do it.

Fate raised Bardiche above her head. A yellow magic circle drew itself in the air above her as she summoned power, more than she'd ever drawn upon at a single time before. She could feel her body straining to handle the magic flowing into her from Bardiche. It hurt a little — it hurt a _lot_ — but she would endure anything for Nanoha's sake. Even if she couldn't channel power in the natural, effortless way Nanoha could, she could still call up enough of it to send this Angel into the stratosphere.

"PLASMA SMASHER!" Fate roared.

An enormous torrent of power blasted upwards from Bardiche. It pierced the ceiling, burning directly through the GeoFront's protective armor plating as it raced towards the surface. Before long, it had reached the descending point of Ramiel's drill. The torrent of power clashed against the Angel's drill, then began to _climb_ it, curling up the sides of the helix with renewed furor. The drill became a conduit for Fate's magic, conducting it straight upwards — directly into the Angel's Core.

Ramiel screamed as Fate's blazing yellow magic erupted from the ground and climbed up the drill. It ceased its own attack, trying desperately to raise a defense, but it had not been prepared for an attack from directly beneath. Fate's magic surged up its drill and into its very heart, surrounding the Core with a corona of crackling destructive energy. The pieces of Ramiel which had been rotating in an orderly fashion around its Core now jerked and spasmed wildly, bumping into the hollow decoy buildings and each other.

Nanoha, still hovering behind the disintegrating remains of Futago Mountain, saw her chance.

"Maximum power — absolute destruction!" She intoned. "Divine Buster Extension!"

The power which she had been keeping pent-up now shot forwards, an unstoppable lance of destructive energy that effortlessly pierced the semi-molten remains of the mountain. Still caught in the grips of Fate's attack, unable to raise a defensive Barrier, Ramiel was powerless to intercept this beam. Nanoha's attack pierced the Angel directly through the Core, the red crystal shattering under the magical onslaught.

Ramiel's dying scream echoed across the city. The separated pieces of the Angel slammed together, returning to their original octahedral shape; but an Angel was a being composed of magic, and with its Core broken it could no longer hold together. Its form began to shift unpleasantly. Previously, it had always taken on angular, geometric shapes. Now, however, it began to bulge unnaturally, as though its entire surface were breaking out in blisters. After a few seconds, these burst, spewing blue blood everywhere. Even in death, the Angel's body appeared to contain a far larger quantity of material than its volume should allow; it's death throws went on and on as an impossibly large quantity of blood fountained from its crumbling form. The drill which it had extended into the ground also melted apart, and Fate had to jump back to avoid the waterfall of blood that suddenly poured from the ceiling and rained down on NERV HQ.

At length, the last of Ramiel's flesh melted away, and the Angel went silent for good.


	9. Blood Of Lilith

**Chapter 9: Blood Of Lilith**

Dr. Ritsuko Akagi hesitated before the door of Precia Testarossa's personal office. Speaking to the Commander was always a nerve-wracking experience. The Commander maintained a cold demeanor that never faltered, not even when speaking in private. Dr. Akagi knew that some of the NERV employees thought the Commander simply put on a tough front as an act, to play the part of the stereotypical no-nonsense leader; but Dr. Akagi couldn't believe this, not after seeing how coldly the Commander spoke to even her own daughter. Fuyutsuki was the only person she had ever seen the Commander act even remotely personable towards; she seemed to hold everyone else in barely-disguised contempt. Thus, it was with trepidation that she knocked on the office door.

"Enter." Precia said simply.

Dr. Akagi did so. The Commander's office was larger than any of the other employee's offices, but only as a symbol of her status; most of the space was unused. There was only a single desk located at the far end of the room, behind which the Commander sat; the rest of the room was empty. The only light source was a lamp on the desk, leaving most of the room filled with shadow. It looked ominous and foreboding — an effect that Dr. Akagi suspected was entirely intentional on the Commander's part.

"Commander Testarossa." Dr. Akagi said, crossing the dark room. "We've received a communication from SEELE."

She handed the Commander a printout of the message. It was short and terse, in typical SEELE style.

"When was this received?" Precia demanded.

"Just minutes ago." Dr. Akagi said. "It didn't have a priority flag so the MAGI didn't notify you, but I've instructed them to notify me immediately of any messages from SEELE and I figured you'd want to see it right away."

"Such insolence!" Precia said.

"Commander?" Dr. Akagi asked nervously.

"Not _you_. The old men." Precia said, looking at the paper. "Tell me, why do you think SEELE didn't put a priority flag on it?"

"Well, it's not _urgent_, so they probably figured it wasn't worth interrupting you for if you were busy..." Dr. Akagi began.

"Ha!" Precia said. "Oh, that's what they'd say if I asked them. But in reality, it was to undermine my authority. A message like this should've been sent straight to me. Then I could've controlled how the information was disseminated, who was informed when. Instead, they lump it in with the regular information with a low priority, ensuring that I don't hear of it until someone brings it to my attention — by which time everyone else has already seen it. Didn't want to interrupt my work? No, they wanted me to be the last person in NERV to find out, to give all the grunts time to read it and make their own opinions and start speculating and spreading rumors. Everything SEELE does is carefully calculated, you can be sure of that."

Dr. Akagi was wise enough to say nothing.

"They're worried." Precia continued. "They know that NERV employees are loyal to _me_, not _them_. That wasn't a problem so long as they were sure I was loyal to them; but now they are having doubts. And so they try to bypass me, to provide information to the rank and file directly without having to run it by me first. Weakening my control, in case they have to replace me later."

"At least the news is good." Dr. Akagi said diplomatically.

Precia glanced down at the paper.

"Four more Intelligent Devices have been finished and are ready for bonding," she read. "They'll be transported by ship to NERV by the end of the month. And I see they've taken the liberty of beginning compatibility testing themselves — no need for me to choose my own candidates for bonding, I can just pick some off their list of approved choices."

Dr. Akagi tried to think of a way to say what she was thinking as diplomatically as possible and failed to come up with any acceptable options; fortunately, the Commander relieved her of the need to speak by correctly guessing where her thoughts were taking her.

"Oh, yes, I'm well aware of the excuse they'd give." Precia said. "The accidental bonding of Fate and Bardiche proves such decisions should be left to more impartial judges, who will ensure optimum outcomes... It's really all about control. They know Fate is loyal to me above all else, and don't want to risk the same being true of the other Magical Girls as well. You can count on any new candidates they send us coming pre-indoctrinated about the glory of SEELE. And if they're finally deigning to send us four more Devices, it's because they've got twice as many that they're keeping for themselves."

"What do you intend to do?" Akagi asked.

"Nothing at the moment." Precia said. "Raising objections would be counterproductive at this point. We'll just have to go with what they say for now. Four more Devices should be enough, considering we've done well enough with two so far."

The Commander proceeded to rip the paper in half and feed both pieces into a shredder built into her desk. That seemed to end the discussion rather definitively. However, while she was here, there was one other thing Dr. Akagi had to talk to the Commander about.

"Commander... one more thing." Dr. Akagi said. "About the private project you have me working on."

"Is it proceeding on schedule?" Precia asked.

"Yes. I've gotten very close to creating an effective formula. I think that, once I get my next injection, I'll have enough information to finish it." Dr. Akagi said.

Silence from the Commander. Dr. Akagi shifted uncomfortably.

"So the sooner I receive my next injection, the sooner I'll be able to finish it." Dr. Akagi.

Still the Commander said nothing. Dr. Akagi got the uncomfortable feeling that the Commander was just drawing things out for her own enjoyment, taking pleasure in watching her squirm before her. Dr. Akagi decided to just cut to the chase.

"I'd like my next injection now." Dr. Akagi said.

"So soon?" the Commander asked. "It's only been a couple of days since your last one."

"I'm very close to a breakthrough." Dr. Akagi said.

"Is that the only reason?" the Commander asked,

The Commander _was_ toying with her, Dr. Akagi saw. The Commander loved being in control of things. She exulted in exerting control over others. And she wanted to make it very clear that she controlled Dr. Akagi, that Dr. Akagi was dependent on her, that their relationship was one of master and servant. Dr. Akagi nearly bit her tongue in frustration. She'd felt some attraction towards Precia Testarossa, once, when she'd looked from afar and seen such a brilliant, powerful, confident woman. That had changed soon after they actually began working together. The Commander had humored her early, clumsy advances — not out of any genuine reciprocation of her affection, Dr. Akagi now understood, but as a means of further controlling her. She'd quickly found out that the Commander respected no one but herself. It had been a hard lesson to learn, and a painful one; Dr. Akagi was careful to always think of their relationship in professional terms now, the Doctor and the Commander, to distance herself from that early emotional folly.

Dr. Akagi didn't like it at all when the Commander exerted her dominance like this. But she was also smart enough to know when it was best to swallow her pride and do what needed to be done.

"_Please_ give me another injection." Dr. Akagi forced herself to say.

"As you wish." Precia said. "In the interest of the project, of course."

The Commander lead Dr. Akagi to the back of her office, where a hidden door led to a private elevator. It was an express elevator directly to the deepest levels of NERV, where the facility called Terminal Dogma was located. As far as Dr. Akagi knew, she and the Commander were the only ones ever to access Terminal Dogma, other than for maintenance — and Dr. Akagi didn't know what sort of _arrangement_ the Commander had with the maintenance staff, but none of them had ever breathed a word of what was down there. The Commander activated the elevator with a key, password, and iris scan; then the two of them were descending.

It was a long, uncomfortable ride down. The Commander's private elevator was faster than any of the others in the facility, as it was built exclusively for transit between her office and the chamber below; but their destination was buried over thirteen kilometers beneath the ground, and such a distance took some time to traverse. The elevator was smaller than was standard for NERV, as it was usually used by the Commander alone, and Dr. Akagi found it intensely uncomfortable to be forced into such a small space with her. The Commander, of course, was as impassive as always; if she found the situation uncomfortable, she showed no sign of it. Dr. Akagi tried not to let her own discomfort show — she wouldn't let the Commander have the pleasure of seeing her squirm.

Eventually, the elevator came to a stop. Dr. Akagi and the Commander stepped out and into the great chamber of Terminal Dogma. The room was dominated by a massive figure, humanoid but inhuman. Her skin was a flawless white and Her body was completely hairless; other than these details and Her colossal size, She had the shape of a human. The first people who discovered Her had worshiped Her as a god, and indeed standing in Her presence was a humbling experience. Whenever Dr. Akagi stood before Her, she felt a sense of kinship; the love of a child for her Mother.

Dr. Akagi could not look at the white giant without also feeling pity for Her current condition. She was crucified, large nails through Her wrists pinning Her to an enormous cross that rose from the center of Terminal Dogma. A giant mask bearing the symbol of the Seven Eyes of God had been embedded into Her head, completely covering Her face. A tangle of tubes pierced Her back, continually drawing Her blood. Her legs were missing below the knees, which terminated in ragged stumps. It was truly tragic to see such a great being reduced to such a broken state. Still, Dr. Akagi's conviction did not waver. The cruelties they had inflicted on Her were a necessary part of the plan — God must be humbled before Man could become God.

"Lilith's regeneration is proceeding nicely." Precia said casually, showing no sign of experiencing any of the emotions that Terminal Dogma stirred in Dr. Akagi. "She should be ready to serve SEELE's purpose by the end of the year, don't you think?"

Dr. Akagi recognized that she was being tested. She could not openly speak of betraying SEELE, as the Commander suspected that not even Terminal Dogma was beyond the reach of their surveillance — a supposition that was entirely correct, as it so happened. Nor, however, could she imply that her loyalty to the council superceded her loyalty to the Commander. Dr. Akagi considered her words carefully before responding.

"Yes," Dr. Akagi said cautiously, "but as Her regeneration proceeds, so does the risk of Her attempting to break free. As such, I've submitted plans for a new restraint system to the MAGI. You can review them before construction begins; the codename is LONGINUS."

The Commander seemed satisfied with this answer.

"That seems wise." Precia said. "Lilith has been complacent in Her captivity thus far, but that may change now that the Angels are seeking Her out. Though She is Mother of us all, Her desires might not align with our own best interests."

That was quite a bit of an understatement, Dr. Akagi thought.

"I don't think She will attempt to initiate Third Impact, if that's your concern." Dr. Akagi said. "Not with any of Adam's progeny, at least. If Adam were to complete Her own regeneration, things might become problematic."

"SEELE is in charge of Adam's retrieval." Precia said. "If they do their part appropriately, there should be no problem."

Dr. Akagi didn't buy that for a moment. SEELE's plan was relatively risk-free, it was true; they'd been planning Human Instrumentality for centuries and prepared well for the critical moment. What concerned her was the Commander's own ambitions. The Commander intended to betray SEELE, interfering with their carefully orchestrated machinations. At that point, when NERV and SEELE declared open war and each began undermining the other, the danger of Adam or Lilith going on a rampage would be extreme. Such things were not to be openly spoken of, of course. Not while the Commander was still going through the motions of obeying her supposed masters' commands, or while SEELE still clung to the faintest remnant of hope that the Commander might yet be brought back into line with their plans.

"As you say, Commander." Dr. Akagi said. "If I've addressed all of your concerns, then I'd like to receive the injection now."

"But of course." Precia said.

The two women walked across a system of catwalks and platforms that criss-crossed the room in front of Lilith. While many tubes rose up from the white giant's back and into the ceiling above, there was only one that descended back down. It terminated at a small medical station on one of the platforms. There, a container slowly filled with the refined essence of the blood that had been drawn and processed. The Commander took a sterile syringe from a cabinet and inserted it through a seal in the container, drawing the blood. There was only a meager amount of blood in the container at present, barely enough to fill the syringe halfway — extracting the blood was a slow process, and Dr. Akagi was requesting this injection ahead of schedule. Still, the doctor gazed upon the orangish fluid with naked desire and anticipation.

Lilith was the Mother of all terrestrial life, humanity's most distant ancestor. Her blood was the very primordial soup from which the first life on the planet was born. A petri dish of Her blood left someplace warm would start spontaneously generating simple life-forms, recreation in miniature of the initial genesis of life. But Her blood carried more than just the essence of terrestrial life; it was also a medium for carrying a vast amount of information. Encoded within Lilith's blood was near-total knowledge of the Universe. The intellect and reasoning capacity of which humanity was so proud was in fact just a pale reflection of Lilith's massive memory, the barest amounts of which they had inherited.

As sentient descendants of Lilith, humans were capable of interpreting the information carried in Her blood. Anyone who drank Her blood was overcome by a flood of visions: random information drawn from Lilith's multi-billion year memory. As exhilarating as it was addictive, partaking of Lilith's blood was akin to a religious experience. It was no wonder that those first people to discover the GeoFront thousands of years ago had worshiped Her as a god.

SEELE had faced two obstacles in finding a way to harness Lilith's blood for their own purposes. The first was that stomach acid destroyed much of the information carried within the blood before it was absorbed into the bloodstream and reached the brain. This, at least, was easily solved: injecting Her blood directly into a vein resulted in far clearer and more potent visions. The second problem had proven more intractable. Each cup of Lilith's blood contained only an infinitesimal amount of Her memory. The odds of any one specific piece of knowledge SEELE desired being included in that information was only the smallest fraction of a percent, practically infinitesimal. SEELE had controlled Lilith for so long, and had learned so very little of practical use. It had taken two thousand years of regular consumption of Her blood before one of their members had finally stumbled across the location of Adam.

However, SEELE was nothing if not determined. In the end, they had found a solution for this problem in modern technology. The MAGI supercomputers governed much of NERV's functioning; but in truth, calculations pertaining to combat with the Angels were not their top priority. The bulk of their processing power was dedicated to analyzing Lilith's blood. The network of tubes embedded in Lilith's back were constantly drawing Her blood and pumping it up to the MAGI. Having been cloned from human brain tissue, the MAGI also possessed the innate ability of the Lilim to read the information encoded in Lilith's blood. They were being constantly bathed in vast quantities of Her blood, screening it for the precious few drops containing the specific information desired. When such blood was found, it was filtered out and diverted into the small reservoir from which Precia Testarossa now filled the syringe.

SEELE had made certain to extract all of the information they desired before the Second Impact. But Precia had her own agenda, and had altered the MAGI's programming so as to serve it.

Dr. Akagi lay down on a bed next to the reservoir, and Precia injected the liquid she had gathered into the doctor's arm. She watched as the doctor went into convulsions from the sudden onslaught of information being poured into her brain; though it didn't show on Precia's face, the sight amused her. The blood of Lilith was invaluable as a source of information, there was no denying that, but she would never partake of it herself. Addiction was a weakness, a lever by which one might be controlled. Precia employed many different psychological levers to manipulate her subordinates, but she herself had no levers by which others might manipulate her. SEELE had thought she did, once, or they never would've entrusted her with Lilith in the first place. They had believed Fate to be her lever, a means by which to bribe, threaten, and cajole her, but they had been wrong. The bonding of Fate and Bardiche, while truly accidental, had had the fortuitous side-effect of maintaining that belief for a while; each accusation of nepotism reinforcing their mistaken belief that they could use Fate to get to her. But now, having seen the ruthlessness with which Precia deployed Fate against the Angels, they were beginning to realize that Fate was not a lever with which Precia could be controlled. They were beginning to realize that she didn't have _any_ levers by which she might be controlled. And now that they realized they had no way of controlling her, they were beginning to doubt her loyalty... but too late. Her plan was already in motion, and nothing would stop her now.

"I'm okay." Dr. Akagi said as the convulsions subsided. "I'm good now."

"Have you gained the information you required?" Precia asked.

"Yes, I think so... yes." Dr. Akagi said. "I have all knowledge relating to rejection reactions now. With this, I can create a compatibility-boosting serum. I'll get to work on it right away."

"I look forward to seeing the results." Precia said.

* * *

Dr. Akagi returned to her office, eager to begin. The blood of Lilith lit a fire in her mind, an irresistible urge to exercise her newfound knowledge. The blood was physically addictive, gradually altering the user's brain chemistry to the point where they became dependent on it for normal functioning, but far more potent were it's psychological effects. For a woman like Dr. Akagi, a devoted scientist who could find pleasure only in her work, the sudden flood of pure information drawn from the mind of Lilith Herself was an incomparable rush. Raw, unfiltered blood could fulfill her physical dependency, but the random jumble of information contained within it would never satisfy her intellectual needs. That is why she had to submit to the Commander's authority, no matter how demeaning her attitude became. Dr. Akagi knew she was at the Commander's mercy in this regard, and knew she should be trying to break free of the Commander's draconian control... but it was impossible to think about such things so soon after an injection, when she was filled to the brim with Lilith's glorious intellect. Chemical formulas danced through her head almost faster than she could keep up with them; her fingers beat a staccato rhythm on her keyboard as she poured it all into the computer. The human mind was not capable of holding the vast knowledge of Lilith; even the minuscule amount of that knowledge contained in her injection was more than the brain could store permanently. She committed the most vital portions to her own memory, and recorded on her computer any knowledge that wasn't immediately critical to the plan but which she might want to reference again later. This ensured that she would still be capable of finishing the compatibility-boost project even after the effects of this dose wore off.

Nevertheless, Dr. Akagi set to work right away, the fire of Lilith's knowledge still burning bright in her mind. When off the blood, calculating the chemical equations for the compatibility-boost serum was work. In her current state, it came to her as naturally as breathing. She knew everything about the causes of the rejection reaction — knew everything about human biochemistry and the Intelligent Devices' magic — and it was the easiest thing in the world for her to write down the formula for a serum that would improve compatibility between any girl and Device, significantly reducing the intensity of the rejection reactions.

Dr. Akagi leaned back in her chair. The rush was over, and most of Lilith's thoughts were beginning to fade. She was still high off of the blood's other physical effects, and didn't think she had the patience to sit down and synthesize the serum now — it would require mixing very specific concentrations of numerous hormones and neurotransmitters. She simply sent her final formula to the MAGI and instructed them to pass it on to the rest of the science department, along with information that the Commander was expecting a completed version soon. That ought to be enough to get them off their asses and back to work — Dr. Akagi was far from the only NERV member who the Commander took pleasure in dominating.

It wasn't uncommon to lose track of time during the rush of Lilith's knowledge. It now occurred to Dr. Akagi that she had missed lunch entirely, and it was getting rather late for dinner as well. It was an annoyance, but no less than Dr. Akagi expected; she'd gotten used to the way that each injection of the blood of Lilith could leave her wrapped up in her own thoughts for as long as six hours. Dr. Akagi quickly finished up her work and prepared to leave the office. She had just stepped out when someone spoke to her.

"Working late again, senpai?"

Dr. Akagi turned to see First Lieutenant Maya Ibuki. Maya's main job was working with the MAGI, but she also frequently assisted Dr. Akagi on other projects. She was a very intelligent young woman, and Dr. Akagi usually appreciated her help. Occasionally, however, she'd try to stick her nose into something classified high above her clearance level and Dr. Akagi had to make it clear she wasn't welcome to help on that particular project. She had no doubt that the Commander wouldn't hesitate to get rid of the young woman if she learned the wrong things; in fact, there was a fair chance Maya knew too much for her own good already, but at least she had the good sense to keep quiet about anything that she wasn't explicitly cleared to know. Dr. Akagi's use of the blood of Lilith was one thing she definitely did not want Maya to know about; as far as the lieutenant knew, the orange fluid was simply a nutrient bath for the MAGI brain tissue.

"I was just finishing up now." Dr. Akagi said. "Were you working late as well?"

"Actually, I was waiting for you." Maya said. "I noticed you missed lunch, so I thought I'd take you to dinner once you were finished with whatever you were doing."

Dr. Akagi didn't normally dine with her subordinates; she preferred to eat alone. However, she was currently feeling a bit too hungry to be choosy; better to eat in the cafeteria and tolerate Maya's presence than to head all the way home for dinner.

"Sure." Dr. Akagi said.

To Dr. Akagi's surprise, Maya took her not to the cafeteria in NERV headquarters like she'd been expecting, but to an actual restaurant in Tokyo-3 above. Dr. Akagi rarely ate anywhere so formal, as her busy schedule left her little time for recreation. In fact, she couldn't remember the last time she'd actually sat down to eat rather than grabbing take-out on her way to or from work.

Maya eagerly chatted about all manner of trivialities. At first, Dr. Akagi thought she was just trying to unwind after a stressful day at work. However, there was something familiar in expectant way Maya looked at her, and in the tone of her voice when she said "senpai". It was the same way, Dr. Akagi realized with a jolt, that she had looked at the Commander all those years ago. She had done the same things herself: pined after the great Precia Testarossa from afar, secured a position as her subordinate, tried to engage her in small talk...

And look at how that had turned out. Dr. Akagi had been attracted by the Commander's aura of prestige and power; the Commanders true self, when she had seen it, had turned out to be singularly unpleasant. Doubtless Maya's apparent crush on her was the same. The young woman only knew the public front Dr. Akagi put up, not the real her; and she probably wouldn't like it when she saw it. Dr. Akagi had done many unpleasant things for the Commander in the name of the war against the Angels, and the war was far from over. Things would get worse before they got better.

Perhaps, in the world to come after Human Instrumentality, she might see if Maya could love the real her. But in the present, it was best to keep their relationship strictly professional. She would not hurt anyone the way the Commander had hurt her.

"I have to go." Dr. Akagi said abruptly.

She walked away from Maya, heading back for her apartment. She forced the image of the First Lieutenant's disappointed face out of her head by focusing on the rejection reaction formulas. Four more Devices would be coming soon, and there was still much work to be done.


	10. The Roaring Beast Of God

**Chapter 10: The Roaring Beast Of God**

The Angel Gaghiel awoke from its long slumber. Like all of Adam's children, its mind immediately focused on a single sensation: the seductive call of Lilith. Even here, at the bottom of the New Dead Sea, Her presence was a beacon that could not be ignored. Gaghiel shaped its malleable body into a form suitable for swimming and began its journey to reach the Black Mother. The first part of its trip was uneventful; the area where it had awoken was still desolate from the devastation the White Mother had unleashed fifteen years ago. It could feel other offspring of Adam at the edges of its senses, but paid them no mind. They were still dormant, still recovering from that great cataclysm. And they would not wake to challenge it — Angels were lonely existences, solitary beings that could not tolerate each others' presence. Gaghiel had woken first, so they would respect its dominance and extend their slumber, allowing it an uncontested shot at attaining the beloved union with Lilith that they all sought so dearly.

It thus came as a massive surprise to Gaghiel when, less than halfway through its journey towards Lilith, it sensed the presence of other magic fields. It should not have awoken if any other children of Adam were awake in the area, nor should any children of Lilith possess the capability to use magic. The very idea of four separate magic signatures being in a single location was anathema to Gaghiel, an indicator that something was catastrophically wrong with this world.

Only one thing was certain: the source, be it Angel or Lilim, posed an intolerable threat. Few Angelic instincts could compete with the urge to seek out Lilith, but the abhorrence of foreign magical fields was one so deeply ingrained in an Angel's sense self-preservation that Gaghiel could not ignore this anomaly. Its sweet union with Lilith would have to wait a little longer, as Gaghiel changed course to hunt down and destroy this the source of this unnatural phenomenon.

* * *

The captain of the destroyer _Makinami_ was nervous. Passengers weren't normally allowed on the bridge, but the man who he now had to explain himself to was a notable exception to that rule. He was no less than an emissary of SEELE, and one hand-picked by the old men to deliver something extremely valuable to NERV headquarters. The _Makinami_ might fly the flags of Japan and the UN, but the captain was under no illusions about who he really served. If he did anything to earn the anger, or even mild annoyance, of this man, then execution for treason was about the best possible outcome he could hope for. SEELE did not take kindly to even the most indirect challenges to their authority.

"Thank you for allowing me to speak." the captain said, wiping his sweaty brow. "I'm afraid the situation is very serious, Mr... uh..."

"You can just call me Clyde." The blue-haired man smiled. "No need for last names. We're all friends here, right?"

"...Right." the captain said, attempting and failing to return the smile. "I know that SEELE has given you personal responsibility for the safety of the package until delivery, and I understand the depths of my obligation to the Council. However, we _must_ change course. The Angel is moving to intercept us, and we have no weapons capable of defending against it. If we don't change course away from the Angel _now_, it will undoubtably catch and destroy us — and the package will be lost. The safety of the package is your top priority, right?"

Clyde looked down at the object he held in his right hand. It was a massive metal briefcase, inside of which were the four Intelligent Devices being sent to NERV. The impressively bulky briefcase had been made quite durable so that its contents would not be harmed by any difficulties encountered during transport, but no mere human creation could possibly stand up against the magical power that an Angel was capable of wielding.

"Delivery of the package is indeed the most important part of my job." Clyde said. "However, as I judge the situation, our best chance of delivering it safely is to maintain our present heading. And, as a duly accredited representative of SEELE, I have the authority to override your commands in the name of protecting the package. We will continue on our current course, captain; and when I issue orders in SEELE's name, you must obey as though the words had come from the mouth of Chairman Keel himself. Is this understood?"

The captain suppressed the first response to come to mind, instead saying: "I understand your position. I do not understand the reasoning behind your decision."

"Stop and consider things rationally for a moment." Clyde said. "Even if we change course directly away from the Angel right now, it will eventually overtake us. There's no way for us to reach safety because there _is_ no safety from an Angel; we could retreat into the middle of the entire UN fleet and they wouldn't be able to so much as slow it down. Our only hope of getting out of this is if one of NERV's Magical Girls comes out and takes it down. The closer we get to Japan, the faster they can reach us."

"What about SEELE?" the captain asked. "They're the ones who created NERV in the first place, don't tell me they don't have any anti-Angel weaponry at their disposal! It'd be faster to turn around and head back..."

"I can't comment on what SEELE may or may not have; but even if they did have some of those hypothetical anti-Angel weapons, they'd be nowhere near enough to be of help. The port where you picked me up was specifically chosen because it was _far_ from anyplace SEELE was active, to avoid giving away any hints as to the locations of their special facilities. No, captain; our only hope of salvation lies straight ahead." Clyde gave a rueful shrug.

"...I understand. We'll hold course." the captain said. "Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Clyde?"

"Just Clyde." the SEELE agent said. "And at this point, I don't think there's much more we can do but pray."

The destroyer _Makinami_ continued to hold course towards Japan, and the Angel Gaghiel continued to close the distance between them.

* * *

"We have a bit of a situation." Lindy said.

Nanoha and Fate had been summoned to a special briefing following the announcement of the appearance of the newest Angel.

"At first, the Angel Gaghiel was following the same path as the others, and we were planning for you to ambush it when it came onshore." Lindy said. "However, the latest tracking data indicates that it has deviated from its course. According to the MAGI, it may be intended to intercept and destroy the _Makinami_, which is bringing us the additional Intelligent Devices."

Dr. Akagi now stepped forward.

"We know from your battle with Ramiel that the Angels are capable of detecting Magical Girls from a distance and recognizing them as threats. The four Intelligent Devices currently en route to NERV haven't been bonded to girls yet, so their magic emissions should be much lower than yours. However, having four of them in a single location might put out enough magic for an Angel to detect." Dr. Akagi explained.

"It's a possibility we can't afford to ignore — we all know that no ship could possibly defend itself against an Angel." Lindy said. "That's why I've decided to dispatch you immediately. Hopefully, by flying at maximum speed, you'll be able to reach the _Makinami_ before the Angel does and defend it."

"Fly the whole way?" Nanoha asked. "Why not use a high-speed transport?"

"There's no place to land in the ocean." Lindy said. "And don't even think of suggesting jumping out of one in mid-air — magic or no, unless you've had skydiving training that's a totally unacceptable risk."

Nanoha hadn't needed to be told that. She'd actually considered it before, during her first few high-speed transport flights, but quickly realized that it wasn't nearly as simple as the action movies made it out to be. Her flight magic clearly did strange things to inertia to allow her to fly; there was no telling how the transition from conventional aerodynamics to Flier Fin travel would go. And skydiving was not the kind of activity that let you learn from your mistakes.

"You're both full on magic, so you should be able to reach the _Makinami_ with plenty left to spare to fight the Angel." Lindy added. "I'll monitor your positions via satellite and give you directions over the earpieces so you don't get lost."

"One last thing." Dr. Akagi said, somewhat reluctantly. "The primary goal of this mission is the safe retrieval of the Intelligent Devices, not protecting the _Makinami_. Obviously it's best if you can do both; but if it comes down to one or the other, you're to grab the Devices and run."

"Ritsuko!" Lindy said, appalled. "How can you say that?"

"I know, I know." Dr. Akagi said. "I don't like the idea of sacrificing the crew of the _Makinami_ either. But the Commander insisted I make it clear what your priority was."

"The Commander." Lindy spat. "She really does think of the UN forces as just pawns to be sacrificed, doesn't she?"

"Don't worry." Nanoha cut in. "We'll protect the ship _and_ bring the Devices back safely. That way there will be no problem, right?"

"Yeah." Lindy said. "That's what I like to hear. "Good luck and God speed."

* * *

The trip to reach the _Makinami_ was mostly uneventful. It was easy to lose track of time and distance when flying over the ocean; flying at high speed, the surface of the water became an indistinct blur of any landmarks. Occasionally, Lindy would speak through the girls' earpieces to instruct them to turn a few degrees to the right or left to remain on course for the _Makinami_, but that was it; there were no startling updates or unpleasant last-minute surprises. The Angel and the _Makinami_ were both holding their course and speed, which would allow the girls to reach the ship before the Angel as planned.

At first, the girls flew side-by-side. However, Nanoha noticed that Fate kept pulling away from her. When she asked, Fate revealed that she was actually flying below her top speed to pace herself to Nanoha. Nanoha had better control of her magic on the whole, but speed was one of the areas in which Fate did surpass her.

"Do you think you could hold me and pull me along?" Nanoha asked. "Without too much extra effort, I mean."

"If you keep running your Flier Fin at max, then I can pull you along with me at my maximum speed without much strain." Fate said. "I will have to hold on to you tightly, though."

"I'm fine with that." Nanoha assured her.

Fate changed position so she was flying immediately above Nanoha, then wrapped her arms tightly around Nanoha's waist.

"Blitz Rush." Fate said.

The acceleration was intense. Nanoha was impressed, and also happy for Fate. While Fate was much more personable than when they'd first met, and their relationship had progressed to the point that they were more friends than colleagues, she knew Fate still had self-esteem issues. Though Fate no longer referred to herself as inferior, Nanoha could still tell that she thought her lower compatibility with Bardiche was scientific proof that Nanoha was a better person than her. Nanoha thought it would be good for Fate's sense of self-worth to know that there were some areas of magic that she was better at. Of course, she hoped that Fate would eventually come to realize that her worth was defined by more than her ability as Magical Girl; but Fate was so repressed that Nanoha felt it best to take things one step at a time.

Nanoha had expected their new flying arrangement to be uncomfortable, but found that it was in fact quite the opposite. It felt surprisingly good to be held tightly by Fate. For a moment, Nanoha was able to forget that they were flying off to battle and imagine that she and Fate were alone under the wide blue sky. It was a beautiful and serene feeling. Nanoha wondered what would happen when the war with the Angels was over. Dr. Akagi had said that they would get to keep their magical powers; perhaps some day she and Fate could go flying like this for real.

Nanoha's peaceful reverie was interrupted by their arrival at the _Makinami_. Fate quickly released her and the two of them landed on the ship's deck. Nanoha turned her thoughts to the matter of the ship's defense, and quickly realized that the situation wasn't good.

"It's so big." she said. "There's no way we can cover the whole thing with our barriers."

"The Angel could also attack it from underwater. We wouldn't even be able to target it if it came up from directly underneath, using the ship as shield." Fate agreed.

"We know what direction the Angel is coming from, right?" Nanoha said. "So we should fly out and engage it before it gets near the ship. Our Devices are active, so their magic emissions are much stronger; if that's really what's drawing the Angel here, it should switch its attention to us."

"It is definitely worth trying." Fate said.

"Lindy, we're going to move away from the ship and towards the Angel." Nanoha said. "Could you let us know if it looks like it's changing course?"

Nanoha and Fate reactivated their flying spells and set off across the surface of the water.

"You've got its attention, alright." Lindy said. "Contact with the enemy is immanent."

"I don't see anything." Nanoha said.

"The Angel is not surfacing." Fate said. "It seems it is going to attack us from underwater. Get ready!"

Barely had she finished speaking when there was an explosion on the surface of the water. Nanoha and Fate both jumped backwards away from each other as a column of water rose up between them.

"Did you see where the attack came from?" Nanoha asked.

"No. It was too fast." Fate said.

There was another eruption from the surface of the water, and Nanoha wheeled away from the spray.

"Axel Shooter!" she shouted.

"Photon Lancer — Phalanx Shift!" Fate joined in.

The two of them rained pink and yellow bolts of energy down into the water and random, tearing up the surface with flashes of light but accomplishing little else.

"This is useless! We can't fight it while it's underwater. Fate, ascend! We'll make it come to us!" Nanoha shouted.

The two girls poured pour into their flight spells, rising high above the ocean surface. Nanoha pointed her staff down at the churning water below them, waiting for the Angel to reveal itself.

"Come on, show yourself!" she said.

Abruptly, the surface of the water was torn apart as something enormous hurled itself into the air. Nanoha had thought she and Fate were hovering a safe distance above the water, but the Angel leaped in a way she couldn't believe. She could barely make out its shape — something vast and whale-like, but unmistakable for any whale that had ever swum in Earth's seas — and then all she could see in every direction were teeth. The Angel was closing its jaws around her, and its mouth was packed full of gleaming teeth the size of her entire body.

"Protection!" Nanoha shouted, hearing Fate yell "Defenser!" at the same time.

The two girls were enveloped in a double-layered sphere of pink and yellow magic as the Angel's jaws slammed shut around them. She felt an enormous pressure from all around her, then a shocking jolt as the Angel came crashing back down into the water. She was barely able to maintain her shield against the force.

"Fate! Are you alright?" Nanoha asked.

Fate was pressed back-to-back with her, the two of them packed together in the shield bubble crushed between Gaghiel's jaws.

"I am unhurt... but I do not know how much longer I can keep my shield up." Fate said.

The terrible pressure as Gaghiel tried to crush them between its enormous teeth was depleting Nanoha's magic at an alarming rate. She had to pour all her power into her shield just to maintain it, and knew that she wouldn't be able to keep it up for long. Sparks of magic were jumping from the surface of the shield as the Angel's teeth wore it away; as these points of light spread faint illumination through the Angel's mouth, Nanoha caught sight of something gleaming.

"Fate! I see the core!" Nanoha said. "It's at the back of the Angel's throat - I've got a clear shot! But I can't attack it while shielding - can you maintain your shield alone?"

"Not long... A few seconds, maybe..." Fate gasped.

"That's all I'll need." Nanoha said, leveling Raising Heart's staff. "I'm going to drop my shield and fire on the count of three, okay? One... two... three!"

Nanoha let her sphere of pink magic fade away, leaving only Fate's yellow bubble between them and the Angel's vicious teeth. Fate was staggered by the increased load on her magic, sweat pouring down her face as Nanoha summoned offensive power.

"Maximum power — absolute destruction!" Nanoha invoked.

Cracks began to spread through Fate's protective bubble. For a moment, Nanoha thought that it would fail, but then Fate redoubled her concentration and re-invoked the spell.

"Defenser Plus!" Fate shouted.

The yellow light pulsed and thickened, forcing back the Angel's teeth. It was all the time Nanoha needed.

"Divine Buster!" she shouted.

Pink light roared from the end of her staff, smashing into the Angel's nearby Core and shattering it in an instant. The pressure on them abruptly lessened as the Angel's teeth broke, dissolving into a slush that sparkled with blue magic like the rest of an Angel's body once the Core was gone; then the Angel's remains were scattered by a deluge of water as the ocean closed around the girls. Fate's bubble of protective magic bobbed to the surface like a cork, bringing the two girls back into the sunlight.

* * *

After the battle, Nanoha and Fate flew back to the _Makinami_. Tired from the fight, it seemed like a better idea to ride it back to port than to try and fly the whole way back by themselves. They sat together on the deck, looking up at the sky.

"Hey, Fate?" Nanoha said. "What do you plan to do after all the Angels have been defeated?"

"...I have never thought about it." Fate said. "I guess I want to go back to living with Mother. Once the Angels have been defeated, she will not have to work all the time. Then we can go back to living like we used to. She can cook dinner for me again... and read bedtime stories to me again... She used to do those things all the time, when Father was alive. But now she only ever thinks about fighting the Angels."

Fate shook her head sadly.

"Mother never talks about what will happen afterwards." she continued. "She tells me that I have to defeat the Angels, but I do not know what I will do after that. I hope I can still be useful to her somehow... so she'll keep loving me..."

Fate lowered her head, and Nanoha laid a comforting hand across her shoulder.

"It's okay, Fate." Nanoha said. "I promise you, no matter what happens, we'll always be friends. And I'll always be there to look out for you."

"Thank you, Nanoha."


	11. Hollow Men

**Chapter 11: Hollow Men**

Dr. Akagi walked into the Commander's office. She carried a sheath of papers bearing the results of her work, but it was more for show than anything; all of the test data was stored on the MAGI, and she knew that the Commander would have been monitoring it closely as the project neared completion.

"So the serum has been perfected?" the Commander asked.

"Yes, I believe so." Dr. Akagi said.

"It has, or you believe it has?" the Commander asked sharply.

"According to all the information I've gotten from the mind of Lilith, it should work." Dr. Akagi said. "However, it has not actually been tested yet."

"That at least is easily solved." the Commander said. "SEELE is going to send us four new girls to bond with the new Intelligent Devices we've received. I'll request that two of them be above the required age. We can test the serum on them and observe the results."

"SEELE will want to know why." Dr. Akagi cautioned.

"Let me handle the old men." the Commander said. "Your only concern is ensuring that the serum functions as intended."

"I am confident that it will." Dr. Akagi said. "Insisting it be tested is not a sign of doubt, just of common sense."

"Certainly." the Commander said. "And once you've proved its efficacy, there will be no more need for our uncomfortable trips to Terminal Dogma. That should come as a relief to you, right doctor?"

"As you know", Dr. Akagi said, gritting her teeth, "prolonged use of the blood of Lilith causes physical dependency. I can't simply stop taking it now."

"Ah. Of course." the Commander said smoothly. "Well, since you continue to be of service to me, I see no reason to undergo the withdrawal process now. There will be plenty of time for that once the war is over."

Or when she ceased to be of service, Dr. Akagi knew. She didn't need it spelled out for her. But the Commander did so love to remind those under her of the power she wielded over them.

"Of course." Dr. Akagi echoed.

She should start researching ways to combat withdrawal from the blood of Lilith right away. Her access to it was going to be cut off at end of the war anyway; it would make things a lot easier if she prepared now. But she doubted the Commander would allow that — she wouldn't permit any loosening of her control. She'd just have to cross that bridge when she came to it.

"In any case, there's nothing more I can do on the project until the subjects arrive." Dr. Akagi said. "Begging your leave, Commander."

"Yes, of course. You are dismissed."

Dr. Akagi hurried out of the Commander's office.

* * *

As soon as the good doctor had departed, Precia pressed a small button concealed on the underside of her desk. A message was instantly transmitted to SEELE, requesting an audience. Precia composed herself and waited. Not much time had passed before the series of holographic projectors built into her office whirred to life and she was in the presence of the council. The old men chose to appear before her in the form of monoliths, hovering black slabs which displayed their number in utilitarian white text.

The holographic technology was fully capable of accurately reproducing human images; the members of the council would see a real-time projection of Precia, accurate down to the minutest detail. They used the blank monoliths as their avatars due to their obsessive secrecy; they didn't want to risk a single careless expression or facial tic giving away some hint of their true thoughts. It wasn't merely paranoia; it was _useless_ paranoia. The mere fact that they had responded so quickly told Precia everything she needed to know about their thoughts. Usually when she tried to contact the council, they would ignore her call and only call her back at their leisure. It was their way of sending a message: you don't summon us; we summon you. But on this occasion, they had answered right away. That told her they were getting anxious. The puppeteers were worried that the puppet might be slipping from its strings, and so were skipping the usual dominance bullshit so that they could hear what she had to say as soon as possible. They thought talking to her might give them some hint as to what she was planning. They didn't know that their puppet hadn't had any strings to begin with.

Precia didn't use an avatar because she didn't need one. Her face gave away nothing.

"Ah, lovely Precia. So good to see you again at last, our prodigal daughter." SEELE 07 said. "What matter brings you back into our arms?"

"What matter is so important that you feel the need to disturb us over it?" SEELE 04 asked. "We have not the time or patience to address you upon your every whim."

"What matter is so important that you presume the right to summon us?" SEELE 01 asked. "Do not forget your position, Commander. You serve only at our discretion."

The old men were intensely secretive about their identities, but Precia recognized the voice emanating from the monolith labeled SEELE 01. She had met Lorenz Keel in person when she had first been given command of NERV. He had admired her, then, for her ability and her determination — as much as he admired anyone other than himself, at least; perhaps it would be better to say that he recognized her usefulness. Precia was under no impression that Chairman Keel saw her as anything but a tool. But he had thought of her as a potentially valuable tool, and entrusted NERV to her. His first mistake.

Truth be told, Keel had not made _many_ mistakes — Precia, despite her initial dismissal of the man as another fool with a half-baked vision for the future, had quickly recognized him as an opponent she could not afford to underestimate. SEELE was more treacherous than a pit of vipers; one did not become Chairman without exerting a certain amount of cunning. Still, he made mistakes, however rarely, and even one was more than he could afford. Precia eagerly capitalized on each error to the maximum possible extent, but more importantly she herself made no mistakes. (_Fate..._ a small part of her mind whispered, but Precia crushed the thought. There had been _unanticipated events_, yes, but those only became _mistakes_ if you let them, and Precia had ruthlessly turned every setback into an advantage). One or two more mistakes by SEELE, and Precia's victory would be certain.

"Forgive my presumption in disturbing your own work, but it is important that I discuss with you the candidates for bonding with the new Devices." Precia said. "I would like to request a change in the selection criteria — specifically, that two of the candidates be over the optimal bonding age."

"You presume too much, Testarossa!" SEELE 03 shouted. "You have no right to dictate conditions to us!"

"The use of pubescent children as Magical Girls has been effective so far." SEELE 04 said. "Why should we change an effective strategy?"

"I have been able to make do with children thus far, yes, but they are unreliable. Undisciplined. Prone to emotional decisions and disrespect towards authority." Precia said. "I would be able to accomplish so much more with more mature Magical Girls."

"You ask a lot of us, Madam Testarossa." SEELE 05. "Haven't we already given you so much?"

"Indeed, you have received more privilege than you are entitled to." SEELE 02 said. "You should be more grateful for what you have received from us already. We have freely granted power and material that many would kill for."

"And still you seek more." SEELE 06 said. "Is it not enough that you command NERV, that you oversee the MAGI, that you possess Lilith Herself? Do you desire yet more power?"

"I ask only for a convenience." Precia said. "The selection of the candidates is still up to you; I am merely requesting a slight change to one of the parameters."

"We revoked your authority over choosing bonding candidates, Commander." SEELE 01 said. "Have you already forgotten why?"

"That's right!" SEELE 03 snarled. "The Bardiche debacle was your fault, Testarossa! If we have lost faith in you, it is only because of your own actions!"

"Is it really so important to change the bonding criteria?" SEELE 04 asked. "Can you not be content with the status quo?"

"I believe it is important, yes." Precia said.

"Then tell us why, our most precious Precia." SEELE 07 said. "There must be more to it than simply seeking more effective soldiers. Speak truthfully."

"There is more to it than combat prowess, yes." Precia said. "I am interested in the consequences of the bonding process. Previously it has only been able to achieve bonding with young girls; but now, thanks to the blood of Lilith, that will change. It will be possible to give magic to people who are older, or younger, or male. How will they react? Will the magic they develop be influenced by their biology? Will magic potential increase or diminish with age? These are questions I would very much like to have answered. Of course, given the obvious combat needs at present, it would be wise to start slowly — two candidates above the optimum age should be a good start. Even if their combat capability is diminished by an imperfect bonding, the addition of the other two Magical Girls to our fighting force should be sufficient. And either way, the results of the bonding will be most illuminating."

There was her bait laid down. SEELE was keeping additional Intelligent Devices for themselves, Precia was sure, but had they been experimenting with them? The council would be curious about bonding, yes, but they were also paranoid and greedy. They didn't want a Device to be wasted by getting stuck in a suboptimal bond with someone who couldn't use it properly. Why risk their own hoarded Devices on such experimentation when they could use the ones they'd already promised to Precia? If it succeeded, they'd know it was safe to proceed with their own bonding experiments; if not, then the loss would be suffered by Precia, not them.

It was all about risk management. Precia was presenting them with a no-lose scenario. If older Magical Girls turned out to be more effective, SEELE could use all of their Devices on older candidates and create a force superior to Precia's. If older Magical Girls turned out to be less effective, SEELE would know to use all of their Devices on younger candidates, while Precia would be stuck with the two older ones; advantage to SEELE again.

They had to know she was up to something with this request. But if they couldn't see any way for her to use it against them, how could she — unless she was smarter than them? And for all their mistrust of her, Precia could not see them admitting to that — if there was any one thing that exceeded their paranoia, it was their pride.

"...That is not an unreasonable request." SEELE 04 said. "It may be easiest to do things as Precia says."

"It appears we have much to gain from Madam Testarossa's proposal." SEELE 05 said. "I believe this will be beneficial for all of us."

"A truly pleasurable proposal indeed, darling Precia." SEELE 07 said. "You have my approval."

"I am opposed." SEELE 02 said.

"As am I!" SEELE 03 said. "This woman deserves nothing!"

"I give my support." SEELE 06 said. "Opportunities such as this must not be wasted, if we are to gain everything that we long for."

"It is decided, then." SEELE 01 said. "We shall consider your request when selecting the candidates. But make no mistake — this is a favor, not an obligation. Be humble in your gratitude, Commander, and think twice before requesting our generosity in the future. We have been extremely lenient with you so far — perhaps a bit _too_ lenient. It is time to shorten your leash. We will be sending an operator along with the candidates, someone to oversee NERV's activities and ensure that you do not stray from the path we have set down for you. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir; of course." Precia said. "I will welcome him with all proper respect for a representative of SEELE."

"Once again, you have gotten what you desire." SEELE 02 said snidely. "But things are going to change now. We will tolerate no more insolence; is that clear?"

"Perfectly." Precia said.

Certainly, things were going to change, thought Precia. A nanny from SEELE would be annoying, but could not stop her now that her plans were so close to fruition. _You've just made another mistake, Keel. Make one more, and it will be your last._

_

* * *

_

While the Commander and the council plotted and schemed in their dark rooms, Nanoha and Fate were swimming in an outdoor pool. Swimming pools had become increasingly popular after Second Impact, one of many strange quirks ultimately resulting from the planet shifting on its axis — the average temperature in Japan was now such that an unheated outdoor pool could be used year-round. The school Nanoha and Fate attended had a rather nice pool that was available for students to use before and after school, provided the swim team wasn't practicing.

Nanoha liked swimming in the school pool. Her family, like most living in houses built after Second Impact, had a pool in their backyard; she was used to being able to take a dip whenever she pleased. However, there was no pool in Lindy's apartment building — it was one of the ones that retracted into the ground, and any sort of pool would've resulted in water sloshing all over the place whenever the building was lowered or raised. Nanoha thus made a habit of using the school pool after class each day; and when she found out that Fate could swim, she insisted the other girl join her.

"You were right." Fate said, pulling herself out of the water to sit on the lip of the pool. "That was very fun."

"If I'd known you could swim, I'd have invited you to swim with me sooner." Nanoha said.

"The last time I went swimming was with Mother and Father... After Father died, Mother became too busy with her work to do anything with me, and I was wrapped up in my training anyway... I just sort of forgot how much fun it used to be." Fate said.

"Well, from now on, I'll go swimming with you whenever you like." Nanoha said.

"It is getting a bit late, though. Lindy will probably get worried if you don't head back home soon." Fate said.

"You're right, it's time to wrap this day's fun up." Nanoha said. "Your mother probably misses you as well."

"No... I do not think so." Fate said as the girls walked inside to the locker room. "We rarely even see each other anymore, except during debriefing after training sessions or missions. She does not care what I do, as long as I win against the Angels."

"You don't see your mother when you go home?" Nanoha asked.

"The apartment is in her name, but she never comes to it anymore. A few months ago, she started sleeping in her office. She spends all her time working or thinking about work." Fate caught sight of the distressed expression on Nanoha's face. "But really, it is fine. The NERV security officers assigned to me take care of things like making dinner; and anyway, the war is a lot more important than me. It is best if Mother puts all her effort into her work now and wins the war; then we will be able live together again like normal afterwards..."

"Even if she's really busy, and even though her job is really important, she's still your mother." Nanoha said. "Don't say you aren't worth it. You deserved to be loved as much as — Fate! Your back!"

Fate had begun to take off her school swimsuit so she could change back into her regular clothes. Nanoha stared in horror at Fate's exposed back, which was criss-crossed with dozens of vicious scars.

"Oh!" Fate flushed as though embarrassed. "Please do not worry about those; they do not hurt at all anymore. You can only see them because they are recent; it will not be long before Bardiche's magic makes them disappear entirely."

"How did this happen?" Nanoha demanded. "During our last mission, or training, or — wait. Don't tell me someone actually did this to you! Were you in a fight, or an accident, or..."

Nanoha had started waving her hands wildly, Fate caught her left hand by the wrist and gently pulled it to rest.

"I am sorry if seeing them upset you, but please believe me: I am fine." Fate said.

"Fate..." Nanoha said. "We're friends, right?"

"Yes, Nanoha." Fate said seriously. "You are my most important friend."

"So it's okay for you to tell me anything." Nanoha said. "I promise I won't be mad at you. But I worry about you, Fate. If there's anything wrong, please, let me know. I want to help you."

"Nanoha..." Fate said. "I am glad that you care about so much; really, I am. But there is nothing to worry about. I am perfectly fine — honest!"

"...Alright." Nanoha said. "I won't press you about it. Just promise me that, if you're ever in trouble, if you ever need my help, you'll ask."

"I promise." Fate said. "But really, you do not need to worry. I am fine."

She slid on her shirt, obscuring the scars from view.

"I am fine." she repeated softly.

* * *

"Welcome back." Lindy said as Nanoha entered the apartment. "How's everything going at school?"

"Huh? Oh, it's fine." Nanoha said distractedly. "But I'm worried about Fate."

"What about her?" Lindy asked.

"What do you know about her home situation?" Nanoha asks.

"Not much." Lindy said. "She lives with her mother, and it's considered impolite to pry into Commander Testarossa's personal life."

"The thing is... she told me that she doesn't live with Testarossa." Nanoha said. "She said that Testarossa spends all her time at NERV and doesn't even come home to sleep anymore. She's been living on her own for months now!"

Lindy frowned slightly at this.

"...That's not how I'd treat _my_ kid, if I had one, but... Keep in mind, Nanoha, that Fate is an accomplished Magical Girl. She's capable of taking care of herself. And Testarossa is kept extremely busy as the Commander of NERV; it may sound insensitive, but fighting the war against the Angels has to come first." Lindy rationalized.

"Don't you think Fate must be lonely, living all alone and only rarely ever seeing her own mother?" Nanoha pressed.

Lindy sighed and cradled her head in her hands.

"Look, if Testarossa really has been ignoring Fate to the point of not even coming home, then I disapprove." Lindy said. "But what I am I supposed to do about it? She's the Commander, and I'm just a Captain. If I start meddling in her personal affairs, my ass is fired."

"I was hoping that Fate could come and live here with us." Nanoha said, causing Lindy to nearly fall out of her chair.

"What? _Seriously_?" Lindy said incredulously

"I don't think Testarossa will mind. She already leaves Fate alone all the time, doesn't she? She'd hardly notice." Nanoha said.

"I am _not_ going to walk up to the Commander and ask if it's okay for her daughter to start living with me." Lindy said. "Forget being fired, she'd probably organize a firing squad."

There were a few moments of silence as Nanoha cast a pleading gaze at Lindy, then Lindy let out a deep sigh.

"...I'm not going to ask the Commander, but if the Commander asks _me_ then I'll accept." Lindy said. "So if Fate herself says she wants to move in, and if Testarossa says she's okay with it, then I'll be happy to take her on. That good enough for you?"

"Thank you!" Nanoha shouted, tearfully embracing Lindy.

"Don't start celebrating yet." Lindy cautioned. "I really don't see the Commander as the kind of person who'd give away custody of her daughter."

"I'll convince Fate to ask. And if her mother says no, then... then I'll make her change her mind!" Nanoha said. "It's not good for Fate, the way she's been living; being with us will be much better for her."

"It's a two-bedroom apartment, and I'm not sharing." Lindy warned.

"That's fine, I can share my room." Nanoha said. "I don't care, just so long as Fate is safe."

"You really care a lot about Fate." Lindy observed.

"I can't stand the thought of her being neglected, or, or, ..._abused_... when I have the power to help." Nanoha said vehemently.

"You think Testarossa would abuse her daughter?" Lindy's eyes rose in shock. "Admittedly, she's not the most compassionate mother, but I have a hard time picturing the Commander deliberately hurting her own child."

"I saw Fate's back when we went swimming today." Nanoha said. "It was covered in scars."

"Probably from fighting the Angels." Lindy said. "The hit she took from Sachiel messed her up pretty badly."

"That can't be it." Nanoha said. "The magic from our Devices boosts our healing. I mean, after the fight with Shamshel my back must've looked practically barbecued, but by now there isn't a single trace of it left. For the scars to have looked that bad, they must've been really recent."

"Fate seems to adore her mother. She's never done anything to suggest Testarossa has hurt her." Lindy shook her head. "I don't know anything about the Commander and Fate's personal lives, and frankly it's none of my business. If Fate wants to come here, and Testarossa lets her, then I'll take her in; but I'm not going to make a issue out of it."

"This isn't like you, Lindy." Nanoha said. "You seem like such a kind person — so why don't you care about Fate?"

"Of course I care about Fate." Lindy said. "But I —"

...am afraid of Commander Testarossa, Lindy realized. She's brought to where I am now; but if I show any sign of insubordination, she won't hesitate to discard me. Fate is the only person I've ever known Testarossa to care about. I don't think she would hurt her precious daughter, but I'm just a tool to her — and tools can be replaced.

" — I don't think she's in any kind of trouble." Lindy finished. "I have no objection to letting her room here if that's what she wants, but I'm not going to accuse Testarossa of being a bad parent — not when she's in the middle of leading a war."

"Fate really is in trouble." Nanoha said. "But I'll definitely save her. Definitely!"


	12. Consequences Of Failure

**Chapter 12: Consequences Of Failure**

Over the next few days, Naoha proposed to Fate the idea of Fate moving in with her and Lindy. Fate was politely but adamantly opposed. She wished to remaining living in the apartment Precia provided for her.

"Don't you get lonely, living by yourself?" Naoha asked.

"I used to be lonely sometimes, but then I met you." Fate said. "Being with you at school and at NERV is enough, really. It would be selfish to ask for more."

"Don't say that, Fate." Nanoha said. "You don't deserve any less than anyone else."

"Thank you for saying so, Nanoha, but I have to stay all the same. What would Mother think if I told her I wanted to move out? She might think that I was abandoning her. I could never do that." Fate said.

Nanoha was undeterred by Fate's resistance. She had always been the kind of girl who never gave up once she set her sights on a goal, and resolved to find some way of convincing Fate. However, despite the neglect and abuse Nanoha suspected her of suffering, Fate's support for her mother seemed unshakeable. Nanoha still hadn't been able to persuade her that Precia was anything less than a paragon of virtue by the time the next Angel appeared.

The Angel was designated _Israfel_. Unlike Gaghiel, there were strong magic fields along its route to distract it, so it approached on the same course as the Angels that had come before. It became visible when it reached the shallow waters where the ruins of Tokyo-3 had once stood, though the buildings themselves had been eradicated and the shape of the coast significantly altered by the attack of the Angel Ramiel. Unlike that bizarre being, Israfel's form was vaguely humanoid, though significantly stretched and deformed. It lacked a head, instead have a bone-like face embedded directly in its torso. The structure was reminiscent of the Angel Sachiel, and the hollow darkness of the eye sockets was an ominous indication that it might be capable of firing the same kind of cross-shaped beam weapon. Having been briefed on this information, the girls were dispatched to intercept the Angel before it could move inland, where the fight would cause collateral damage.

Fortunately, though the Angel had moved quickly through the water, its humanoid shape was less effective at traversing dry land. NERV's high-speed transport aircraft was able to deliver Nanoha and Fate to an airstrip near the Angel before it had covered any significant distance; the girls then drew upon their magic and flew to confront the threat.

The Angel's eye sockets glowed with blue fire and it unleashed a beam weapon, but the girls were expecting this and had been preparing to dodge. Israfel's method of attack was different from Sachiel's; rather than a single powerful beam, it unleashed multiple weaker beams in a rapid-fire burst. The girls were almost caught off-guard by the first volley, but maintained their evasive action.

"Split up!" Nanoha suggested.

The two girls flew away from each other, and the Angel could only turn to target one of them. It elected to follow Fate's movements; and while she was kept busy dodging the barrage of magical attacks, Nanoha was free to launch an attack of her own.

"Axel Shooter!" Nanoha shouted.

Dozens of energy projectiles erupted from the tip of her staff and flew towards the Angel. Israfel was put on the defensive, ceasing its attacks on Fate in order to erect a blue magical circle between itself and Nanoha. Nanoha's hot pink plasma smashed against the barrier, which wavered more with each hit. Though none of the attacks penetrated, the final impact pushed the defensive magic past its breaking point. The Angel's barrier shattered into a cloud of blue sparkles.

Fate, taking advantage of the lull in the Angel's attacks, had prepared a barrage of her own.

"Plasma Lancer!" she shouted.

Blazing yellow energy projectiles launched at Israfel. Unable to re-establish its barrier in time, the Angel instead dodged, performing a series of surprisingly agile cartwheels away from the attack. However, Fate wasn't finished. The bolts that passed by the Angel came to an abrupt stop behind its back as small yellow magic circles formed around them; then they unexpectedly reversed course, flying back towards the Angel. Taken by surprise, Israfel was unable to defend itself as the destructive energy burned dozens of flaming holes in its back. A spray of blue blood filled the air as the impacts knocked the Angel forwards onto its face.

"Nanoha! Now!" Fate called.

Nanoha was already drawing in magic. The tip of her staff glowed with pent-up power.

"Divine Buster!" Nanoha yelled as she unleashed her attack.

A massive beam of pink magic erupted from Nanoha's staff and shot at the stricken Angel. Israfel had been in the process of standing back up; but once it noticed the oncoming attack, it tried to drop back down into a crouch. Nanoha's attack didn't strike the Angel dead-center, but rather in the upper portion of its body, above the bony face. However, such was the power of her magic that it tore straight through the Angel's body. As the Angel's flesh melted away from the point of impact, it seemed to split down the middle, exposing the shining red Core at the center of its body.

"Arc Saber!" Fate shouted.

Not giving the Angel the slightest bit of time to recover from Nanoha's assault, Fate lunged forwards, slashing Bardiche downwards at the Core.

And that's when everything went wrong.

When Fate's buzzing scythe struck the Angel's Core, it didn't encounter any resistance. The Core easily separated into two pieces, coming apart like pre-sliced bread. The Cores moved apart from each other, each taking up position in the center of one half of the Angel's bisected body; then the halves moved apart from each other and regenerated. Where once one Angel had stood, now there were two.

The girls, dumbstruck by this sudden mitosis, were caught completely off guard when the two new Angels attacked in perfect unison. They became trapped in a crossfire of deadly energy beams that blazed rapid-fire from the Angels' eye sockets. With attacks coming in from two angles, there was no time to shield; the girls were forced to dodge until they could get clear of the deadly energy. Even with their Barrier Jackets protecting them, they both got singed by the close passage of the intensely blazing blue magic.

"You take the right one!" Nanoha called to Fate as soon as she had a chance. "I'll take the left!"

At first Nanoha thought that the Angel's bifurcation wouldn't be too much of a problem. Even if they were facing two opponents, there were two of them as well. Since Nanoha had been able to defeat Sachiel on her own, she figured that she could take down one while Fate took down the other. However, she quickly discovered that a two-on-two fight was an entirely different matter than two one-on-one fights. The Angels were supporting each other, protecting each other with barriers and synchronizing their attacks. Nanoha and Fate had practiced enough to work well together as a team, but the Angels were in another league altogether. Nanoha got the horrible feeling that, though there was no visible connection between the two Angels, they were still a single being: two bodies with one mind. She and Fate had to communicate in order to coordinate their attacks, but the Angels worked together as naturally as the left and right hands of someone ambidextrous.

"It's no good!" Fate shouted. "We can't fight two at once!"

"There must be something we can do!" Nanoha said.

But there wasn't. With both Angels fighting in unison, their abilities far surpassed the two Magical Girls. The Angels attacked furiously, and soon the girls were too busy dodging and shielding to have any opportunity to attack themselves. They fell back, trying to put some space between themselves and the Angels, but it was useless; the Angels advanced relentlessly. Their attacks began breaking through the girls' defenses; Nanoha and Fate founded themselves being buffeted and battered by the Angels' energy blasts. It was soon clear that they were fighting a losing battle.

"Girls!" Lindy suddenly cut in over their earpieces. "I'm aborting the mission. Fall back to the transport immediately.

"What!" Nanoha protested.

"That's an order, Nanoha!" Lindy said.

"But... but..." Nanoha clenched her fists at the thought of retreating from battle and allowing the Angels to rampage unchecked.

"Nanoha." Lindy said. "The situation has become too dangerous. What if the Angels can _divide again_?"

That stopped Nanoha cold. They were being defeated by the Angel after just one division. If it could divide into four, they wouldn't stand a chance; they'd be killed for sure.

"We can't rush into battle against this Angel now that it has demonstrated such a dangerous ability." Lindy said. "I know it hurts to admit defeat, but there comes a time when you have to run and live to fight another day."

"...Okay." Nanoha said grudgingly. "I understand."

"The Angel slowed down a lot once it came ashore, right?" Lindy said. "We should have enough time to come up with a plan and launch a second attack before it arrives at Tokyo-3."

"Alright. We're retreating now."

Nanoha and Fate broke off their fight with the twin Angels and flew away in defeat. The Angels initially made as though to pursue them; but once it was clear the girls had no intention of fighting it, the two monsters turned back to the inexorable march towards Tokyo-3... and Lilith, who lay waiting beneath.

* * *

The mood in the command center is tense. Everyone was trying very hard to look anywhere except at the Commander's face. Of course, Precia's expression would be as blank and emotionless as always, but that somehow made it worse. They all knew that she was positively fuming, ready to unleash the full force of her rage on the first person to catch her attention; and that no matter how terrible the fury she let loose on that unfortunate soul, no hint of humanity was show on her mask-like face. Everyone busied themselves in their work, the technicians paying extra-close attention to the MAGI's readouts and Lindy keeping up a steady stream of conversation with Nanoha and Fate as she directed them away from the battle with an unnecessarily precise level of detail. Even after they had boarded the high-speed transport and were well on their way back, she found trivial reasons to keep talking rather than turn around and report to the Commander. In the end, only Fuyutsuki had the courage to approach Precia. He lightly tapped her shoulder to get her attention, then whispered in her ear.

"There's an incoming communication from SEELE." Fuyutsuki said. "The old men want to speak to you."

"Yes, I imagine they do. The bastards will want to gloat about this." Precia grumbled. Then, loudly: "I leave the debriefing of the girls to you, Captain. I have other important business to take care of now, but I expect you to come up with a new plan for defeating the Angels by the time I return."

Precia stalked out of the command center and quickly headed back to her office. She didn't like jumping at SEELE's call like a trained dog; but since her Magical Girls had decisively lost the battle, she was hardly in a position to act superior. Furthermore, it was critical for her plans to find out what sorts of contingency measures SEELE had in place in case NERV failed to defeat an Angel. SEELE controlled the production of Intelligent Devices, and she didn't doubt for a moment that the old men were keeping some for themselves — but how many? How powerful were their Magical Girls? Did they bond each new device immediately, so as to have the maximum amount of time to train each new girl before she had to be used; or were they holding the majority of their Devices in reserve until after Dr. Akagi had completed her work on compatibility augmentation, so that they would be able to use each Device to its maximum efficiency? This lost battle, unfortunate though it may be, might give Precia the answers.

_There will always be unanticipated events,_ Precia thought to yourself. _What is important is how I react to them. Anything can be turned to my advantage. I need only find the proper lever..._

After sitting down at her desk and composing herself — regardless of circumstances, Precia would not allow the old men to see her looking the slightest bit ruffled — Precia activated the holographic projectors. The seven looming monoliths of the Council members immediately appeared before her.

"Have you encountered a bit of trouble, dearest Precia?" SEELE 07 asked.

"Bit off more than you could chew, did you?" SEELE 06 taunted.

"There is no problem. I can still salvage the situation." Precia said curtly.

"No. We will handle this matter ourselves." SEELE 01 said.

"You need not do anything else, Precia." SEELE 04 said. "Simply sit back and allow us to demonstrate the true power wielded by this Council."

"The time has come at last for us to unveil the proudest achievement of SEELE! This is our trump card, a weapon of unsurpassed destructive capability!" SEELE 01 said, his voice escalating to a shout.

"Look upon what we have wrought and prostrate yourself in fear and envy!" SEELE 02 said ecstatically.

"Testarossa! Now you shall bear witness as the wrath of SEELE descends from the heavens to annihilate all who stand against us!" SEELE 03 roared euphorically. "Behold the power of our ultimate weapon: _Arc-En-Ciel!_"

* * *

Orbital Weapons Platform _Asura_ was one of many military satellites launched by the UN in the wake of Second Impact, a collection of swords hanging over the heads of the quarrelsome nations of the time. It was the threat posed by orbital weapons like _Asura_ that had forced the more reticent nations to stop fighting amongst each other and accept the UN as the new _de facto_ world government. Unbeknownst to most, however, the true masterminds behind the _Asura_ were SEELE. It was a weapon, yes, but not a conventional one; it had always been intended for use against Angelic as opposed to terrestrial targets.

Much of the _Asura_'s mass consistent of a containment shell and life support equipment for a MAGI, a biological computer of cloned brain tissue like the three in NERV. However, while those used their immense processing power to interpret the information encoded in Lilith's blood, this one had been designed with a different purpose in mind. Nestled in the heart of the satellite was an Intelligent Device, one of the first created by SEELE. The MAGI, altered though they may be, were genetically Lilim; and so, like a human, they could be bonded to an artificial Linker Core. Now, all the processing power of this giant brain was focused on analyzing the Device that had bonded to it. Each processing cycle deepened the connection, accessing more of the Device's magical power. Humans who bonded to Devices were limited by the capacity of their minds; they could only consciously control so much magic. The MAGI possessed a far greater consciousness than any human; the potential destructive power of the magic they could wield was unmatched by anything in Heaven or Earth. This was SEELE's ultimate weapon: the Arc-En-Ciel.

At long last, the _Asura_ had received a fire command from its earthbound masters. Arcane energies welled up in its Linker Core, then poured from the biological components into mechanical circuits. This first test was being conducted at only twenty percent of the Device's full output; even so, the magnitude of the magical energy coalescing at the satellite's cannon-like bottom was spectacular. Bright auroras flashed across the Earth's rarified upper atmosphere as the swelling energy field reacted against the magnetosphere: a bulls-eye of concentric rainbows spreading over the target zone. Cellphone communications would be scrambled across half the hemisphere, and any other satellites which happened to pass through close orbits would have all their sensitive electronics fried — perfectly acceptable collateral damage. The _Asura_'s own critical systems were well-insulated, and continuous self-diagnostics as it charged confirmed that everything was well-within tolerances. A hundred-percent full-power shot might still prove too much for even the _Asura_'s hardy engineering — it was difficult to even conceive of the strains that would be posed by channeling such an incalculable amount of magic power — but the current data was a most pleasing sign for SEELE. If the _Asura_ held up as well at higher power levels, it would serve perfectly in their plan for Instrumentality.

Finally, the charging sequence was complete. The blazing magical energies converged on a single point on the tip of the _Asura_'s cannon, forming a sphere that burned brighter than the sun. The satellite took a moment to confirm the target coordinates, then unleashed the fury of the Arc-En-Ciel.

An iridescent spear of blindingly bright energy pierced Heaven and Earth. Blue magic circles inscribed themselves in the air as the twin Angels raised barriers to protect themselves, but it was like opening an umbrella under a waterfall. The unstoppable torrent of power tore through the barriers like they weren't there, engulfing the Angels in a maelstrom of destructive energy. The overwhelming power tore apart the landscape, destroying everything in the vicinity of the target zone. The land burned, the sea boiled, the sky split apart, and everything was devoured by an all-consuming light.

* * *

Precia strode into the command center. The space that was usually filled with a holographic representation of the battlefield contained nothing but static.

"What is the situation?" Precia demanded.

"Hold on. We're getting the data feeds back online now." Makoto reported.

The projection flickered and then changed to show the former battleground. The scenery was almost unrecognizable; every landmark had been eradicated by the blast wave. The hologram was now dominated by an enormous crater which was filling with water, becoming a new inlet on the shore of Japan.

"Can you determine the status of the targets?" Precia said.

"We are still reading the magic energy of the Angels." Shigeru said. "However, it is greatly depleted. It is likely that they have been severely damaged."

"They will regenerate, yes?" Precia said.

"_Eventually_, yes." Shigeru said. "But this attack involved magic levels magnitudes greater than anything Nanoha or Fate have ever produced. This isn't just a matter of regenerating a lopped-off limb or two; there's likely damage to the Cores themselves. Hell, just the sheer amount of magic in the blast might've knocked them unconscious from sensory overload. They won't be getting back up anytime soon."

"How long?" Precia asked.

"The MAGI estimate... six days." Maya said. "Though only with 50% confidence; the readings we're picking up aren't specific enough to be more accurate."

"Can we destroy them while they're immobile?" Fuyutsuki suggested. "Takamachi could use her Divine Buster Extension to snipe their Cores like Ramiel."

"Ramiel's Core was clearly exposed." Makoto pointed out. "These Angels, on the other hand, are at the bottom of a lake. There's no way to get any kind of visual lock whatsoever, let alone the precise aim necessary for a sniping attack. The Cores are just too small for the girls to have any reasonable chance of hitting them under these conditions."

"Damn." Fuyutsuki said. "It looks like we'll have to go another round with them next week."

"...It is not a problem." Precia said.

"You have a plan, Commander?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"The new Magical Girl candidates will be arriving later today." Precia said. "We will bond them with Devices, train them, and have them battle the regenerated Angels be their first live-fire exercise."

"Train them in six days?" Fuyutsuki asked dubiously.

"Nanoha had no training, and she performed adequately enough." Precia said. "And the new Magical Girls will be starting with a number of additional advantages over her. Having been hand-picked by SEELE, I trust they will have already been educated with at least a rudimentary understanding of the powers they are going to be wielding. They will also have the advantage of watching the recorded footage of the first battle against Israfel, and thus know of its capabilities and combat style beforehand. Training can only go so far — these girls are going to have to face real combat against real Angels sooner or later. Would it not be better for their first experience to be against an understood foe, rather than a new Angel with unknown capabilities that might take them by surprise as Israfel did Nanoha and Fate?"

"You have a point there." Fuyutsuki admitted. "The MAGI should already be analyzing the data from the fight; they'll be able to create a perfect model of the Angels' combat style, strengths, and weaknesses for the new girls to study before the fight. It's hard to imagine a more ideal first mission for them."

"You three." Precia waved an arm at the technicians on the deck below. "Compile the MAGI's analysis of Israfel's combat style into a report to be delivered to Captain Harlaown. Fuyutsuki, come with me to my office; there is something more I would like to discuss to you in private."

* * *

In the darkness of Precia's office, Precia slipped into the chair behind her desk. Hers was the only chair in the room, leaving Fuyutsuki to stand uncomfortably. She would undoubtably provide him with a chair if he asked, but in a way that made it clear she thought less of him for giving in. Fuyutsuki loathed the Commander's damn petty power games, but he was stubborn in his own way. At his age, he was starting to feel the first twinges of arthritis in his joints, but he was still strong enough not to have to ask Precia for favors, dammit.

"This is a public relations disaster." Precia grumbled. "The public has seen our Magical Girls fail in combat against the Angels; and what's more, they have seen the UN unveil a weapon effective against them. In the wake of these events, public opinion could easily turn against us."

"Can we speak freely here?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"I have temporarily disabled SEELE's surveillance devices." Precia acknowledged.

"Then I have to ask: does it matter at this point?" Fuyutsuki asked. "The plan is so near to completion that even if our funding was completely cut, we would still have the resources to accomplish it. And I wouldn't expect you to be the type to abandon your ambitions simply because the ignorant masses disapprove of you."

"The problem is not so much public opinion itself, but rather how SEELE can use public opinion to serve their own ends." Precia said. "When SEELE loses confidence in me, the natural next step would be to remove me from my position as Commander. However, I have subverted the loyalty of my subordinates to the point where the only practical way of eliminating me would be to disband NERV itself. So long as NERV is humanity's only defense against the Angels, it is difficult to see how they could justify such an act. But if the public places their faith in the UN and the Arc-En-Ciel... then there would be much less resistance to the idea of decommissioning NERV. No, we must maintain public support for now, as a shield against SEELE shutting us down."

"So how do you plan to spin recent events?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"We can restore confidence in NERV's anti-Angel capability by finishing off Israfel once it regenerates. The most important thing right now is to sabotage the UN's public image, to prevent the people from embracing them as a savior in our stead." Precia said. "To that end, I plan to leak the truth about Second Impact. Part of the truth, at any rate; people don't need to know that SEELE was pulling the UN's strings. SEELE's own obsessive secrecy will work against them nicely here. Once everyone the world over knows that the UN are villains who triggered Second Impact and killed billions, it is hard to imagine them being comfortable with it being the only line of defense against the Angels — indeed, the thought of such mass-murderers controlling the Arc-En-Ciel at all will be quite unsettling. They'll be the ones desperately trying to justify their existence, and NERV will retain its supremacy."

"Correct me if I'm mistaken," Fuyutsuki said hesitantly, "but I believe that Captain Harlaown's loyalty is based primarily on you agreeing to obfuscate her father's role in Second Impact."

"Yes, I suppose it will be unfortunate to lose that particular psychological lever." Precia said. "However, it is a sacrifice that I am willing to make. There are other ways we can control the Captain. She has developed quite an attachment to the Takamachi girl, has she not? I will be certain to point out to the Captain that, should she decide to end her employment with us over this incident, someone else would have to be appointed to train and command the girls — someone who would certainly be less experienced than herself. Someone who might make a mistake at a critical moment, resulting in the death of a Magical Girl. We would all be deeply saddened should such a tragedy occur — though I will also be certain to point out that, with the arrival of four new Magical Girls, the loss would hardly be crippling. Indeed, if one were unkindly disposed, they might truthfully describe poor young Nanoha as _expendable_."

"That seems a bit... extreme." Fuyutsuki said. "Are you sure it wouldn't be safer just to remove her entirely?"

"A beaten dog will bite back?" Precia asked with a faint air of amusement. "Is that what you're suggesting?"

"I'd have said it in a somewhat more refined manner." Fuyutsuki said. "_It is much safer to be feared than to be loved... nevertheless, a Prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred._"

"Do not quote Machiavelli at me out of context." Precia said dismissively. "_The Prince_ was written as a satire, not an instruction manual. I would expect you to know better; you are a former professor, are you not? But in response to your question, I would prefer to keep Captain Harlaown around if at all possible because she has proven quite competent. I was not entirely lying when I said anyone appointed to take her place would be inferior; better to rely on her demonstrated talents than try to train someone new to fulfill her role."

"And so you're willing to take the risk of her rebelling against you?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"It is not as much of a risk as you seem to think." Precia said. "In matter of fact, I anticipated that the time would come when I would have to betray the secret I promised to keep for her, and have accordingly tested her to see how she responds when I make decisions that go against her moral fiber. Do you recall Ramiel?"

"I recall you practically gloating that you were going to trick UN forces into dying needlessly in futile battle against the Angel." Fuyutsuki said grudgingly. "I did think at the time that you were being needlessly provocative..."

"I was testing her." Precia said. "One of Captain Harlaown's strongest motivations for fighting the Angels is to prevent them from causing more needless deaths. I personally arranged for more needless deaths to occur at the hands of the Angels, and what did she do? Nothing but whine and sulk."

Precia gave a humorless laugh.

"This dog has no teeth, Fuyutsuki. I can abuse her as much as I please and the worst she will do is quietly resent me. Of this I can be certain. It is all so easy, when you see what makes people tick. For Captain Harlaown, it all comes down to duty. She believes it is her duty to defeat the Angels, and will do anything necessary to achieve that end... even work for someone she loathes. No matter how strong her feelings of hatred, she will not lash out at me, nor attempt to sabotage NERV — that would be letting her emotions overcome her reason. And that is what she thinks lead to her father's death, since she can't imagine that he would trigger Second Impact knowingly — she prefers to imagine that he was so overcome with his emotional desire to recover Adam that he made a fatal mistake. People are so very _simple_, Fuyutsuki. Like marionettes who can't see their own strings."

"I see. Should I inform the Captain that you'll be breeching your agreement?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"No, no; better to present it to her as a _fait accompli_, I think." Precia said. "For maximum impact on public opinion, I will time the public announcement to coincide with our victory over Israfel. Best for the Captain to learn about it then; any earlier, and the knowledge would be weighing on her while she was training the girls for their all-important rematch. We would not want such a thing negatively impacting her performance during the leadup to such a crucial battle, now would we?"

"Very well." Fuyutsuki said.

"Oh, but please do tell the Captain to send Fate up to my office as soon as possible." Precia added. "I need to have a quick word with the girl regarding the consequences of her failure."

Fuyutsuki turned away quickly. Precia's mask hadn't cracked: her voice didn't waver, her mouth didn't twitch, there was no glimmer of emotion in her dark eyes. But for a moment he saw past his former student's facade and glimpsed her true self; and in that moment, he couldn't bear to look her in the eye.

"Yes, Commander." Fuyutsuki said stiffly.

The Commander had given that order before, when Fate failed to live up to her expectations. Fuyutsuki knew what it meant. And he knew that Precia wouldn't tolerate any dissent — on other matters, they could still talk as professor and student; but at times like this, it became clear that their true relationship had become one of servant and master.

"You are dismissed." Precia said.

Fuyutsuki walked from the Commander's dark, foreboding office. Fate, he knew, was loyal to Precia due to daughterly love; Lindy due to her sense of duty; Ritsuko first due to attraction and then due to chemical addiction. Why did he remain by her side? If he asked her what 'made him tick', in her words, would she say that it was because the two of them shared a friendship that could endure any adversity? Or would she dispassionately claim it was due to a mental flaw, a redirected paternal instinct or a Pygmalion complex or some other such psychobabble, something subconsciously binding him to her like a marionette's strings bound it to a puppetmaster?

It was a question Fuyutsuki didn't like to think about, because he thought he knew the answer.

* * *

Fate entered her mother's office with no small amount of trepidition. She knew failure merited punishment, but she was prepared to face it. It was her duty to accept the consequences of her actions.

Precia had been sitting patiently behind her desk; as Fate entered, she slowly stood up and walked around the side. As she walked, something unfurled from her hand and dangled above the ground. It was an object Fate knew well: a dark leather whip, Precia's preferred device for inflicting corporal punishment. The mere sight of it made Fate nauseous. However, she would not show weakness in front of her mother.

"Take off your shirt and stand in front of the desk." Precia ordered.

Fate complied. Familiar with the procedure, she leaned forwards, using her arms to brace herself against the desk and displaying the curve of her back to Precia. Precia examined the faint scars etched there, remains of their last punishment session. Due to the accelerated healing granted by Fate's bond with Bardiche, the old scars were barely visible anymore. Precia contemplated the fading pattern like a painter deciding which brush to use.

"I am very disappointed in you." Precia began.

Without warning, her hand twitched and the whip struck across Fate's back, ripping a furrow in her skin. Fate flinched but did not cry out.

"I am so ashamed of your performance." Precia said. Rather than her usual perfectly flat inflection, she spoke in a voice dripping with emotion. "It is humiliating when you fail. The whole world watches when you battle. Everyone sees it when you fail. And seeing such a poor performance from you makes them think that I am a failure at raising you. Is that what you want people to think?"

"I'm sorry, Mother." Fate said tearfully.

Precia lashed out again, striking another bloody mark across Fate's back. The impact of the whip caused Fate's entire body to shudder.

"I am doing this for your own good, you know." Precia said softly. "You have been a very bad girl, after all. Children who misbehave have to be punished. If they are not punished, they will never learn. I want you to do better. That is why I have to punish you."

"I understand, Mother." Fate said. "I will do better next time, I promise."

Precia struck Fate again with the lash, flaying her back still further. This time, Fate could not keep a small whimper of pain from escaping her lips. Precia heard it, and shook her head sadly.

"Why do you make me hurt you, Fate?" she asked, as though heartbroken by her own actions. "I do not want to hurt you, but you leave me no choice. Making me do this is your fault, Fate. It is your fault for failing."

"I am sorry I failed, Mother. I am really, really sorry." Fate was crying openly now.

"Do you not love me, Fate?" Precia asked in a near-whisper.

"Of course I love you, Mother." Fate sobbed. "I love you more than anyone else in the world."

Precia seemed to consider this for a moment, then cracked the whip across Fate's back again. The young girl's fragile skin had by now been absolutely ravaged by the savage blows. Blood steadily oozed from the gouges and trickled down her body. Fate, normally so stoic, looked like she was on the verge of passing out from the pain.

"If you really loved me, you would not make me do these things." Precia accused. "I hate having to do this to you, Fate. Have no doubt, this hurts me more than it hurts you. My heart breaks at the thought of harming precious daughter. You cannot possible understand how much it hurts me that you would force me to do such a thing. You are _hurting_ me, Fate. Why would you do such a thing to your own mother?"

"I am sorry, Mother." Fate sniffled. "I do not want to hurt you. I promise I will not hurt you again. I promise..."

"You are not good enough! You have to do better, Fate. You have to _be_ better. If you keep failing, I will have to punish you again. You do not want to put me through this again, do you?" The words dripped like poison from Precia's tongue.

"No, Mother! I will do better! I will be better! I will not hurt you again! So... please do not stop loving me!" Fate cried.

This seemed to satisfy Precia. She lowered the bloody whip and inspected the damage she'd inflicted on her daughter.

"Go. Have Dr. Akagi look at your back; I expect you to be combat ready again by the time of the next engagement with Israfel." Precia said.

"Of course, Mother. Thank you. Thank you." Fate said.

She put her shirt back on, wincing at the pain of the fabric against her shredded back, then ran from the room to carry out her mother's instructions. Precia watched the wounded girl leave with unwavering eyes, then set about cleaning up the blood that had fallen on her office floor. She naturally thought such a task to be demeaning, but there was no way she would allow cleaning personnel into her office; such lax security would be absurd. In any case, she didn't mind this as much as some of the other petty tasks that she had to handle as a matter of course - dealing out punishment to the wretched girl always left Precia in a good mood. She wondered when the time would be right to dispose of Fate for good. The newly arriving Magical Girls would create some redundancy, certainly; but Fate's unquestioning loyalty made her more valuable than the new arrivals, who would probably have sympathy with SEELE. She'd probably end up keeping Fate around until she was sure she'd gotten some good leverage on the new arrivals. Still, the day would come when keeping Fate alive would serve no further purpose. And thinking of that day, Precia could not help but let the corners of her lips curl into the barest hint of a smile.


	13. New Arrivals

**Chapter 13: New Arrivals**

The four new Magical Girl candidates arrived on the evening of the failed battle against Israfel. Their arrival at NERV was a large event, and many of the base's senior personnel gathered in the staging area to welcome them. Precia was there, displaying her usual lack of emotion; Fuyutsuki, who stood beside her, was more transparently trying to project an air of dignity. Lindy also stood nearby in full uniform; she seemed to be eager to make a good impression. Dr. Akagi, on the other hand, clearly had her mind on the job; she hadn't bothered to change out of her usual white lab coat. She held a bulky case in each hand as she waited: one was the container the Intelligent Devices had arrived in, while the other contained specialized medical equipment from her personal lab. Nanoha herself had of course attended, she was eager to meet her new comrades, and Lindy had said that her presence might be helpful to them, since she'd gone through the bonding process herself. Nanoha had expected Fate to show up as well, but the girl was strangely absent. Nanoha initially wondered if Fate was just running a little late, but she still hadn't shown up when the four new Magical Girls entered the room.

The girls formed a line and bowed as one to Precia. The Commander remained motionless, but Nanoha leaned forwards, eager to get a look at the girls who would soon be going into battle beside her. She had been expecting them all to be around her age, and was therefore surprised to see that two were significantly older — apparently in their twenties. Hadn't Dr. Akagi said that only girls at the beginning of puberty could successfully integrate an artificial Linker Core into their bodies? Nanoha shot a glance at the doctor, but she seemed unsurprised; apparently she had known about this beforehand.

A handsome man with blue hair stepped out from behind the line of Magical Girls and walked in front of them. He also bowed for Precia, though much less formally than the girls had, and gave a charming smile. Nanoha heard Lindy stifle a gasp when she saw the man, and she quietly edged over to the Captain.

"Do you know that man, Lindy?" Nanoha asked.

"Yeah. His name is Clyde." Lindy said. "He's one of SEELE's best men — a real prodigy. We... knew each other before I was assigned to NERV."

Nanoha noticed a faint blush creeping into Lindy's cheeks.

"Lindy..." Nanoha asked. "Were you and Clyde dating?"

"No!" Lindy said, a bit too quickly. "I mean, we were... good friends, but he was being promoted much faster than me, and the difference in rank made it awkward for us to, ah..."

There was a definite crimson flush growing on Lindy's face.

"You really like him, didn't you?" Nanoha said impishly. "You should go talk to him."

"It's been a while..." Lindy mumbled. "I don't know if he even remembers me after all this time..."

This was a side of Lindy that Nanoha had never see before. Lindy, who always acted so cool and confident, was blushing like a lovestruck schoolgirl who couldn't admit a crush. Nanoha wasn't sure what the details of Lindy's past with Clyde were, but the Captain clearly still had strong feelings for him. Before Nanoha could press her for more information, Clyde stepped forward to speak.

"Hi," he said informally. "My name is Clyde. No need for last names — we're all friends here, right?"

He winked at Lindy, who Nanoha could swear let out a squeak.

"Allow me to introduce the girls who will be joining your Magical Girl program." Clyde continued.

He indicated the leftmost girl, who seemed around Nanoha's age. She had blue eyes and brown hair, and appeared somewhat slender and frail. Then again, Nanoha supposed, she herself didn't exactly have an imposing physique; physical strength was irrelevant when one wielded the magic of an Intelligent Device.

"Miss Hayate." Clyde said.

The girl, Hayate, gave a short bow.

"Miss Vita." Clyde said.

The next girl in the line gave a curt nod. She looked perhaps a bit younger than Hayate, but more sturdily built. She had orange hair, tied back into pigtails.

"Miss Signum."

The young woman who was next in line didn't acknowledge Clyde's introduction at all. She clearly had a warrior's build, her body lithe but muscled. Her pink hair had been tied back into a ponytail.

"And finally, Miss Shamal."

"I'm pleased to meet you all." the final woman said.

She was the eldest of the candidates and had a somewhat motherly appearance. Her short-cropped hair was blonde.

"The Council has appointed me to be the guardian of these lovely ladies for the duration of their stay at NERV." Clyde said. "I will see to their housing arrangements. Of course, I will also require full access to NERV's facilities... in order to make sure everything is proceeding properly."

"Of course." Precia said darkly. "It is only natural that playing nursemaid to these girls would necessitate having full run of the place. Am I to assume you are requesting access to Terminal Dogma as well?"

"Now, Commander — can I call you Precia? No? Well then, Commander — surely there shouldn't be any problem with a representative of SEELE having oversight of facilities given to you by SEELE in the first place. After all, it's not like you have anything to hide. Right?" Clyde smiled.

"Naturally, naturally." Precia muttered. "Fuyutsuki, see that any of our... honored guest's requests are seen to immediately."

"Of course." Fuyutsuki said. "An accredited representative of SEELE will receive no less than our full hospitality."

"And now, if introductions are over with, perhaps we could proceed with the boding procedure?" Precia asked.

Dr. Akagi stepped forward.

"I'd like to start by giving Signum and Shamal the compatibility augmenting serum." she said. "Afterwards, you can all undergo the bonding at the same time."

It was quite important for them to all start the bonding process at the same time. Although Dr. Akagi was confident in the efficacy of her serum, there was still the possibility that one of the bondings might fail. And if the other girls saw the results of a fatal rejection reaction, there was no way in hell they'd agree to go through with the bonding themselves. Dr. Akagi considered herself a fairly detached, dispassionate person; but the memories of the rejection reactions caused by Bardiche before her early compatibility boosting experiments finally resulted in a successful bonding with Fate still made her stomach turn.

Those experiments had been the final straw which made her break off her romantic relationship with the Commander. She'd already known on some level that the Commander didn't truly love her, was only using her, but it was the failed experiments that made her realize how truly twisted the Commander was. She had looked on those horrifying rejection reactions not with disgust, but _amusement._

Dr. Akagi forced those memories from her mind. They were definitely not something she wanted to be thinking about right now. Acting as though she was not worried at all, she opened her medical case and began preparing the compatibility augmenting serum.

"Don't worry," she told the young women as she filled a syringe with serum, "this won't hurt a bit."

* * *

It seemed that the bonding procedure would take some time. Unlike Nanoha, who had simply been instructed to pick up Raising Heart, Signum and Shamal were receiving a treatment which would prepare their bodies to accept the Devices. Dr. Akagi had to give each of them an injection, then wanted to perform some tests to make sure it was taking effect before proceeding. Fuyutsuki set about haranguing the other employees who had come to see the arrival of the Magical Girls to stop standing around get back to work. Once it became clear that nothing more was going to be happening for a while, they grudgingly complied. While waiting for this to finish, Nanoha prodded Lindy.

"You should talk to Clyde." she said.

Lindy mumbled something under her breath that Nanoha couldn't make out.

"Come on. It's the first time you've seen him in a while, right?" Nanoha urged. "He may be playing it cool, but I'm sure he's eager to talk to you, too. C'mon!"

Nanoha gave Lindy a slight push in Clyde's direction. Reluctantly, Lindy walked up to him.

"Um... hello again. It's been a while." Lindy told him.

"Hey, Lindy." Clyde said. "Glad to see you in good health. I was hoping this assignment would cause us to cross paths; it's one of the reasons I insisted on taking guardianship of the girls myself. I'm not in the habit of throwing my rank around, but I thought the chance to see you again would be worth it."

Lindy blushed, clearly flattered. She scanned Clyde's uniform, checking for insignia, but his black suit was unmarked. Clyde, realizing what she was looking for, smiled apologetically.

"My presence here is supposed to be discreet, so I skipped the usual decorations." he said.

"The way you were rising the ranks, you've probably hit Admiral by now." Lindy said in a teasing tone.

"Afraid not." Clyde chuckled. "I've only achieved the modest rank of Commodore."

"_Commodore!_" Lindy yelped. "Seriously!"

"Before you ask, no, I don't actually command a naval battle fleet." Clyde said, raising his hands. "The rank is more of a bureaucratic fiction than anything else; it's just to make it easier to give orders to the general UN forces who don't know to jump to attention at the name of SEELE."

"Oh." Lindy said. "So I guess it's the kind of thing where you get all the responsibility with none of the privileges."

"Well, I wouldn't say none of the privileges." Clyde said. "For one thing, I can do this. Lindy Harlaown, I hereby promote you to the rank of Major. Congratulations."

"What!" Lindy said. "Uh, I mean, thank you very much. I don't deserve such an honor..."

"Well, maybe not based on the outcome of the last battle—" Clyde began.

"That wasn't my fault!" Lindy interrupted in protest.

"— but overall, I've been impressed by your work. Your handling of the situations posed by Ramiel and Gaghiel were particularly praiseworthy. So don't be overly modest. Israfel aside, you've earned this... Major."

"Thank you, Commodore." Lindy said, inclining her head.

"Oh, that title sounds unbearably stuffy when you say it." Clyde said with a laugh. "Please, just call me Clyde like you used to. I'd like to think of you not just as a subordinate, but still as a close personal friend."

Lindy flushed bright crimson.

"I- I- I- I have to go fill out some paperwork!" she stammered, and fled the room.

"Ah, she ran away. And I didn't even get around to inviting her to dinner." Clyde said, shaking her head.

"I think Lindy must really like you." Nanoha said. "I've never seen her so flustered before."

"Ha! Don't let the tough captain act fool you; she's a romantic at heart." Clyde said. "By the way, I don't think I ever got a chance to thank you, Miss Nanoha. You saved me from Gaghiel. Without your help, I'd have been sunk for sure."

"Oh! I didn't know you were on the _Makinami_! ...But that was really no big deal." Nanoha said modestly. "And besides, it wasn't just me. Fate helped out as well."

"Commander Testarossa's daughter, right?" Clyde said. "I was hoping to meet her as well, but she doesn't seem to be here."

"Fate can be kind of shy sometimes." Nanoha said. "But she always shows up for training, so you'll get to see her then."

"Looking forward to it." Clyde said. "If you'll excuse me, I think it's best we stop talking now. Not that your conversational skills are lacking in any way, but the Commander's giving me the evil eye."

Clyde stuck his thumb over his shoulder, and Nanoha saw that Precia, who had previously been paying close attention to Dr. Akagi's medical preparations, was now staring at the two of them.

"She thinks I'm a spy, no doubt. She probably suspects I'm pumping you for information to pass on to the old men." Clyde chuckled. "I wouldn't want to get you into trouble, so farewell for now."

As Clyde walked away, Nanoha wondered what he meant. Lindy had told her that NERV had been established by SEELE, and thus the Council were effectively their bosses. But the way Clyde talked, it sounded as if Precia and SEELE were enemies. Why would she suspect her own bosses of spying on her — unless she was doing something to warrant it? Nanoha shook her head. Clyde was probably just joking, she decided. He seemed like the kind of carefree person who'd say something like that just for fun. Still, the Commander _had_ been looking at them rather intensely...

* * *

"Everything looks good." Dr. Akagi announced. "I think we can proceed with the bonding now."

"Good." Precia said. "Takamachi, please instruct the new recruits."

Nanoha snapped out of her daydreams and quickly walked over to the other girls. Dr. Akagi was placing Intelligent Devices on a table in front of them.

"Reinforce... Graf Eisen... Laevatein... Klarer Wind." Akagi named them. "These will be your Devices."

"Hi!" Nanoha said brightly. "I'm Nanoha Takamachi. I'm very pleased to meet you."

"I'm glad to meet you, too." Hayate said. "We've all been watching you fight on TV. I think you're awesome!"

"Thanks." Nanoha said. "But I'm sure you'll become excellent Magical Girls too, once you bond with your Devices."

"SEELE instructed us on the theory behind magic use, but I'm sure your practical experience will be helpful in our training." Signum said.

"I'll do my best." Nanoha said. "The first thing to do is bond with your Devices."

Hayate reached down for the cross-shaped Device, Reinforce, only to quickly draw back her hand.

"Ow! It stung me!" she said.

"That must be the rejection reaction we were told about." Vita said, lightly grasping Graf Eisen. She grimaced a little, but didn't pull her hand back. "It's not that bad."

"It's best to just do it quickly." Nanoha said. "Grab the Device and press it against your chest as fast as you can. It will only hurt for a moment."

As one, the four girls grabbed their Devices and pressed them against the skin of their chests. The Devices glowed brightly as they sank into the girls' flesh. Dr. Akagi held her breath as she watched the process, but her treatment had been successful. The girls' bodies accepted the artificial Linker Cores, showing no ill effects as the Devices began filling them with magic energy. Dr. Akagi let out a sigh of relief; it would have made a terrible first impression for one of the girls to die during the bonding process. Then she turned towards the Commander and gave a slight nod of her head. The compatibility boosting serum was perfect. Though the Commander showed no visible reaction, Dr. Akagi knew that this would please her greatly. Her plan was one step closer to fruition.

"...That wasn't so bad." Hayate said a little shakily.

"It felt like getting stabbed." Vita said bluntly. "Feels okay now, though."

"That must be the enhanced healing kicking in." Shamal said. "Look, there isn't even a mark left where the Devices went in."

"Oh yeah, we were told about that. Enhanced healing." Vita said, rubbing the spot where Graf Eisen had sunk into her body. "That should come in handy."

"I'm fine." Signum said laconically. "But I feel different."

"It's the magic." Nanoha said. "You should feel the Linker Core beating in your chest like a second heart. Reach into yourself and touch that power, then use it to build a Barrier Jacket over your body. Like this."

Nanoha drew on Raising Heart and switched to her magical form. By the time she had finished materializing her Barrier Jacket, the other girls had already started calling on their magic. A magic circle grew on the floor beneath each of them, and magic power began flowing over their bodies. Nanoha noticed that, just as her magic was pink and Fate's was yellow, each of the girls had a unique color of magic. Hayate's was white, Vita's orange, Signum's purple, and Shamal's green. When the light faded, each was clad in a knight-like Barrier Jacket.

"That was pretty fast for your first time." Nanoha complimented them.

"We practiced visualizing our Barrier Jackets as part of our training, so we already had a strong mental image to draw on." Hayate explained.

"That was good thinking." Nanoha said. "Now try and materialize your Devices as some kind of weapon."

Hayate went first. She extended her hands and began gathering magic between them. After a few seconds, the magic coalesced into the shape of an old book.

"...Sorry." Hayate said. "I wanted to make something gun-like, but when I think of magic, the first thing that comes to mind is a spellbook..."

"It shouldn't matter." Dr. Akagi cut in. "The primary purpose of the Device's manifestation is as a tool to focus your magic. Even if it is not a weapon-like object, it should still be able to serve that purpose."

"You could ask your Intelligent Device." Nanoha suggested. "It doesn't speak in words, exactly, but Raising Heart gave me a good sense of how my magic could be used. Try communing with... Reinforce, right? Ask Reinforce how to use its power."

"I... I think I understand it." Hayate said. "It took this shape specifically because I think of magic in terms of casting spells; a book will be the easiest tool for me to use to focus my magic. I can definitely still fight even though it's not a magic staff like yours."

Vita and Signum went next. Both opted for weapon-like forms; Vita created a large iron hammer, while Signum produced a sword.

"It feels a surprisingly light... but I get the feeling it's pretty powerful." Vita closed her eyes for a moment. "...If I'm understanding my Graf Eisen right, it can even change shape and size to match my needs in combat."

"I have materialized a conventional sword, for the time being." Signum said. "I will have to see how magic can supplement my fighting style."

"Signum is really amazing at swordfighting, even without magic." Hayate said.

"You mean, um, kendo...?" Nanoha asked.

"Nope. Real swordsmanship, with actual swords and everything." Vita said. "I didn't see the point myself — it's not like a metal blade can do much compared to the kind of magic we've seen you throw around — but Signum's really passionate about it."

"It's not just about the physical blade." Signum said, with the air of one who had made the same argument many times before. "It's about training oneself to one's weapon as an extension of one's own body."

Shamal was the last to materialize her Device. It took the form of a set of rings on her fingers. Unlike Hayate, who was surprised to see her Device take on a non-aggressive form, Shamal seemed satisfied with the results.

"It was a suggestion by the Honorable Council." Shamal said. "You and Fate both specialize in offensive magic, right? But that's not the only thing magic can do; it's potentially capable of a lot more. They want me to explore ways magic can be used in combat other than direct blasts."

"That's an interesting idea." Lindy said. "Nanoha and Fate wield a lot of fighting power, but the only real support skill they have is Fate's Lightning Bind. Some more tactical abilities could open up a lot more combat options for us. What kinds of things were you thinking of?"

"The Honorable Council gave me a list of things to try." Shamal said. "They don't know which ones will work, or are even possible — so much of the Intelligent Devices' potential is still unexplored. It's kind of going to be trial and error at first, but hopefully I can learn to pull off some good tricks."

"I think it's a good idea." Nanoha said. "Lightning Bind really saved my butt when we fought Shamshel. And we had trouble with Gaghiel because we didn't have any way of fighting underwater — some kind of special technique to, I do don't know, yank it up to the surface or something would've been a big help."

"I can't promise anything, but I'll do my best." Shamal said.

"Alright, then." Lindy said. "Let's see what you girls can do."

* * *

Over the following days, Nanoha, Fate, Hayate, Signum, Shamal, and Vita trained for their upcoming battle against the Angel Israfel. With Nanoha and Fate's guidance, the four new girls easily mastered flight and barrier magic. The most difficult part of the training was coming up with a fighting style which suited each girl's talents and magic. Signum was the quickest to become proficient in combat, seamlessly combining her newly awakened fiery magic with her well-practiced sword skills. Vita chose to forgo style in favor of blunt force, materializing a large warhammer. She had no prior weapons experience; by her reasoning, if she was going to have to learn from scratch to wield something, she might as well choose the strongest thing she could think of. Shamal, after failing several times to come up with offensive techniques, developed an exceptional support skill. Her green magic could open a pair of connected portals, allowing instant movement from one location to another. Shamal initially developed the magic with the idea that it would be useful to be able to teleport directly to the site of a new Angel's arrival, rather than having to rely on NERV's high-speed transports. However, she quickly discovered that it had a number of applications on the battlefield as well. The first thing the girls found when experimenting with it was that it could completely bypass even the most powerful defensive barrier.

"Could you open a portal to Israfel's Core right now, allowing us to snipe it while it's still asleep?" Lindy asked.

"I need to know something's location before I can open a portal to it." Shamal said apologetically. "The MAGI still haven't gotten an exact fix on the Angel's location, right?"

"No, its magic emissions are too low while it's inactive." Lindy sighed. "It was worth a shot."

"Also, my portals are two-way." Shamal added. "If I opened a portal from here to the bottom of a lake, the base would flood."

"Too bad." Lindy said. "I was thinking we could use portals to snipe new Angels from perfect safety, but I guess they'd just shoot right back through the portal."

"Forget sniping, you should use the portals as guillotines!" Vita said enthusiastically. "By opening and closing them while an Angel is halfway through, you could cut it in half!"

"Only if it was obliging enough to stick half its body through an open portal." Shamal said. "I can only open portals in empty space, and I can't move them once they're open."

"Still, I think Vita's got a good idea." Lindy said. "How about this — you open a portal behind an Angel, then the other girls hit it with an attack to knock it backwards..."

Despite Shamal's initial difficulty finding the proper way to handle her magic, she quickly got the hang of applying her portals to combat. Ultimately, the one who had the most trouble with the training was Hayate. Her magic was so powerful and destructive that she had a hard time controlling it; with her aim, she was as much a danger to her allies as the Angels. All of the Intelligent Devices possessed different traits and individual quirks; Reinforce was apparently the most powerful of them, producing such a prodigious amount of magical energy that Hayate couldn't it focus it properly. Lindy finally decided it would be best if Hayate gave up on close-quarters combat altogether in favor of playing a more artillery-like role.

"Sorry." Hayate said. "I'll keep working on my control, I promise."

"It's okay." Nanoha assured her. "To each her own, as they say. In the meantime, you can try communing with Reinforce — ask it if it can teach you a spell with an area of effect that isn't measured in square kilometers..."

* * *

In addition to Lindy, Clyde sometimes watched over the training sessions. The new girls liked him a lot; despite his high rank, he had no complaints about being assigned to essentially baby-sit them. He lived in the same suite as them, and even cooked their meals; apparently Shamal, though quite skilled in most domestic matters, had been banned from the kitchen after the first night.

"...I did not think it possible for soup to catch fire." Fate said.

"C'mon, Fate, she's clearly exaggerating for dramatic effect." Nanoha said.

"Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that." Vita said. "There's a burnt spot on our apartment ceiling that says otherwise."

The six Magical Girls had quickly become fast friends. As Nanoha had anticipated, Fate was shy at first, but quickly opened up to the new girls once she realized how much they had in common. With only a week to prepare for the rematch against Israfel, the girls were being driven hard, and the common burden on them encouraged bonding. In the past, Nanoha and Fate had been given a maximum of one training lesson a day, so that they would still have enough energy left to take on an Angel should one appear at an inconsiderate time like Ramiel had. However, since no more Angels would attack while Israfel was awake and they had until the end of the week before Israfel became active again, Lindy saw no problem with pushing the girls to their limits for the time being.

During a break in one training session, Nanoha took advantage of Lindy stepping out for a break to speak to Clyde alone.

"Thanks for taking the time to help us with training." she said.

"It's not a problem." Clyde said. "Looking after the girls is pretty much my only job around here. Well, I'm also supposed to be supervising the running of NERV, but Precia doesn't exactly approve of that. You'd be amazed at the number of ways of stonewalling me she's come up with over the past few days."

"That's kind of what I wanted to ask you about." Nanoha said. "Why would the Commander think you're a spy? You and her both work for SEELE, right?"

Clyde let a sigh.

"It's sad to say, but relationships aren't so hot right now between Precia and the old men of SEELE." he said. "It's true that Precia was once the golden girl of SEELE, a favored child who could do no wrong. But when you hand someone the keys to the kingdom, they can sometimes get a bit greedy. The old men gave Precia command of NERV, occupation of the GeoFront, control over the MAGI, custody of the Black Mother, leadership of the Magical Girl initiative... and Precia decided that with all that power, she could do what she wanted rather than what the Council wanted. Turns out she has quite the rebellious steak, that Precia."

"So... the Commander has quit SEELE? She isn't taking orders from them anymore?" Nanoha asked.

"Not exactly." Clyde said. "If Precia openly thumbed her nose at SEELE, they'd just send a new Commander to replace her. Precia's smarter than that. She's still toeing the line. But the old men have a strong suspicion that she's only keeping up appearances — smiling to their faces while planning to stick a knife in their backs. Naturally, they'd want to keep a close eye on such a person; perhaps even place an assassin close to her, so that when she tries to betray them, they can betray her back first. And just as naturally, Precia will suspect any person with close connections to the Council of being such a spy. Precia didn't get where she is today by trusting everyone she met, bless her paranoid heart."

"So... you're a spy sent by SEELE to watch the Commander?" Nanoha asked.

"Of course not! I am merely a guardian for these four girls who have been entrusted into NERV's care." Clyde said. "Although... that is what a spy would say, isn't it?"

After a moment's thought, Nanoha shook her head.

"I don't think you're a spy or an assassin, Clyde." Nanoha said. "Lindy... really likes you. And I trust in her judgement. She wouldn't fall in love with a bad person."

"I have to say, I'm flattered." Clyde said. "Though, really, there's not much point in sending a spy who isn't trusted, is there? Hypothetically speaking, of course."

"...I'm so confused." Nanoha sighed.

"That's politics for you, little girl." Clyde laughed.

"Why can't everyone just get along?" Nanoha wondered. "What is there for the Commander and the Council to argue about, anyway? Everyone wants to defeat the Angels, right?"

"Well, yes." Clyde said. "The sticking point is what comes after that, Nanoha. You've only used your powers to fight Angels so far, so you probably don't realize, but you could probably defeat the entire UN armed forces singlehandedly with your magic. Once the threat posed by the Angels is over, whoever commands the loyalty of the Magical Girls will have the power to conquer the world. Precia understands the value of that power; that's why she's trained you and Fate to fight for her, not for SEELE. Likewise, you can be sure that if Precia gives one order and the SEELE gives another, my girls will follow the Council's instructions. You girls may be fighting the war against the Angels, but Precia and the old men are already fighting the war that will come after. A war to control magic."

Nanoha hung her head as she thought about that. She'd naively assumed that her life would go back to normal once the Angels were defeated. But now, she was starting to realize that things wouldn't be resolved so simply.

"Clyde... Am I going to be able to lead a happy life?" Nanoha asked.

"...What do you mean?" Clyde asked.

"The Commander promised me a bunch of things when I agreed to become a Magical Girl." Nanoha said. "Stuff like a scholarship to college. So I always assumed that as soon as the Angels were gone, I'd just be able to return to my old life like nothing had happened. But that's not going to happen, is it? Now that I'm bonded to Raising Heart, they're never going to let me have a normal life again."

"I can't know the future, Nanoha." Clyde said, dropping his normal kidding demeanor for a serious tone Nanoha had never heard from him before.."But let me tell you something I do know. My girls are all orphans. Signum and Shamal's parents died in Second Impact. Hayate and Vita hadn't been born yet at the time, but the environmental conditions and collapse of infrastructure caused by the event eventually lead to their parents' deaths. Not one of them has any family left. They were taken in and raised by SEELE not out of compassion, but because they ranked high on compatibility tests. The old men only see them as tools, weapons to be wielded against SEELE's enemies. But _I_ don't see them that way. Hayate, Signum, Shamal, and Vita are all precious friends to me. I've done my best to keep them happy no matter what they were forced to go through. I helped Vita with her studies — her parents were too poor to send her to school, and she was functionally illiterate when SEELE brought her in. I listened to Hayate cry herself to sleep the first night she spent in the SEELE barracks. I comforted Shamal and Signum when they passed the old Magical Girl age cutoff without being assigned a Device. I've done everything I could for these girls. I'm sure Lindy has been looking after you and Fate in the same way. And when the war against the Angels is over, no matter what else happens, I can assure you of this much: Lindy and I will do our best to ensure your happiness."

"Thanks, Clyde. That means a lot to me." Nanoha said. "You couldn't fool me with that spy talk; I knew you were a good man."

"...If you say so, Nanoha." Clyde said.

"So," Nanoha said, the cheer returning to her voice. "What's your history with Lindy, anyway?"

"Well, I'm not sure I can tell you about that kind of thing." Clyde said teasingly. "I mean, you're still a kid. Maybe when you're a little older..."

"I _have_ had sex ed." Nanoha said. "I know about that kind of stuff."

"Well, sorry, but a gentleman never kisses and tells." Clyde said with a wag of the finger.

"And here I thought you weren't a gentleman, Mr. Spy."

"Work is one thing, but matters of the heart are different." Clyde said in all seriousness. "A man must always be chivalrous in love. People call me a flirt, but truthfully, Lindy is the only woman I've ever truly loved."

"I knew it! I could tell you had a history as soon as she laid eyes on you." Nanoha said.

"What about you, little miss?" Clyde prodded. "Aren't you around the age girls start forming crushes? Is there anyone who's caught your eye?"

"Not a chance." Nanoha said. "The boys in school are all so _boring_; I'm not interested in them at all. I've never had a crush; I guess I just haven't met the right person."

For some reason, Nanoha's eyes flickered over to Fate as she said this, though she couldn't imagine why.

* * *

All too soon, the inevitable day of the second battle came. Instead of being brought to training, the girls were ushered into a briefing room where Lindy stood in front of a map showing the coast of Japan, modified to account for the inlet created by the Arc-En-Ciel.

"Shortly before noon, the MAGI detected a spike in magical energy from the bottom of the crater." Lindy said. "Shortly afterwards, motion sensors set up by the UN detected movement from a large object emerging from the seabed and moving towards shore. This is it, girls: it's finally time to take on the twin Angels Israfel."


	14. The Twin Angels Of Poetry And Music

**Chapter 14: The Twin Angels Of Poetry And Music**

In the briefing room, Nanoha, Fate, Hayate, Signum, Shamal, and Vita watched as Lindy projected a video of the first fight against Israfel.

"Current readings indicate that the two halves of the Angel rejoined into one during the regeneration process." Lindy said. "However, we can expect it to try and pull the same trick again."

"We'll be ready for it this time." Nanoha vowed. "It won't catch us off-guard twice."

"On the upside, the MAGI have completed their analysis of the Angel's capabilities." Lindy said. "Since it only has a two-part Core, it can only divide into two."

"That is fortunate. I am not certain we would be able to handle more." Fate said.

"The Angel is most dangerous when divided." Lindy said. "Because both halves are controlled by a single mind, they can act in perfect unison. You'll need good teamwork to fight both at once."

"Well, that's what we've been training for, right?" Vita said.

"I'm certain we'll be up to the task." Signum opined.

"There's one more thing." Lindy said. "For Hayate, Signum, Shamal, and Vita, this will be their first actual combat experience. The Commander thinks its important for them to get as much practical experience as possible from this engagement. As such, I want them to take the lead in this fight. Nanoha and Fate will take more of a support role."

"Is it really wise to hold back against such a powerful foe?" Fate asked.

"All of the Angels are powerful foes." Lindy said. "The girls are going to have to get used to fighting them sooner or later. I'm not asking you to let them get hurt — if they look like they're in trouble, of course you should help out. But I want you to give them a chance to try out their powers in a serious battle. If you hold their hands the whole time, they won't learn anything, now will they?"

"Alright, I'll try not to embarrass them by finishing it off too quickly." Nanoha said.

"Big words for someone who already lost once." Vita countered.

"I'm very grateful, Nanoha." Hayate said. "You didn't have anyone to help you in your first fight. And I'm sure Vita appreciates it as well, even if she won't say so."

"Yeah, she likes to act tough, but she's a nice girl at heart." Shamal added.

"Just don't get overconfident." Lindy warned. "Six against two might seem like a big advantage, but you haven't won yet."

"You can count on us." Nanoha said.

"Alright." Lindy said. "Shamal, do the honors."

The six Magical Girls drew upon their Devices, cloaking themselves in their Barrier Jackets and materializing their weapons. As soon as they were all finished, Shamal extended her hands. A mote of green magic sparked to life in the air, then rapidly expanded into a ring. Looking through it, the girls saw not the opposite side of the room but the shore of the Arc-En-Ciel crater. A salty wind blew through the portal.

"Connection established." Shamal said.

"Good luck." Lindy told them.

Nanoha walked forwards through the ring. Shamal's magic truly was impressive; the transition was seamless. One moment Nanoha was in the briefing room, the next she was on the shore. The other Magical Girls followed close behind her. Shamal was the last to pass through, and she closed the portal immediately. Having a link, even a small one, directly from NERV to the location of an Angel wasn't something she wanted to risk.

"Where is it?" Shamal asked.

Signum, who had been alertly scanning her surroundings since stepping through, immediately pointed to the inlet.

"There." she said. "It's about to surface."

The water rippled, then erupted as Israfel leaped to shore. Water seemed to burst off of the Angel as it raised its barrier.

"First shot is mine!" Vita announced. "Swallow Flier!"

Orange magic condensed in Vita's outstretched hand and formed a solid sphere. The young girl spun around, building up angular momentum, then slammed the head of Graf Eisen into the sphere. The warhammer launched the projectile forwards at tremendous speed, sending it careening into the blue magic circle that floated in front of the Angel. The projectile exploded on impact; but while the Angel's barrier flickered for a moment, it withstood the attack. The Angel then immediately counterattacked, destructive blue beams lancing from its eye sockets.

"Watch out!" Nanoha said. "Protection!"

"Defenser Plus!" Fate shouted at the same time.

A wall of pink and yellow magic formed between the Magical Girls and the Angel, blocking the blast. The Angel began shooting rapid-fire energy bursts; but while it might have overwhelmed Nanoha or Fate alone, the two together were able to produce a double-layered barrier that withstood the attacks.

"Damn." Vita said. "So much for a good first impression. I didn't think that its barrier would be able to stand up to that."

"Hey, my first attack didn't work either." Nanoha said. "You'll get better with practice. But since I'm not sure how much longer I can hold this barrier, maybe we should try something else. Shamal?"

"I'm going to try bypassing its barrier." Shamal said. "Hold on for just a few more moments."

She extended her hands and a glowing green ring grew in the air in front of Vita. The linked counterpart swelled in the air in front of Israfel — inside of its protective barrier.

"Try it again." Shamal said. "Through the portal."

"Swallow Flier!" Vita announced.

A mighty swing of Graf Eisen sent another orange energy bullet rocketing through the air. It sped through the portal opened by Shamal and impacted directly on Israfel's chest. The Angel's flesh exploded under the attack, and blue blood filled the air.

"I'm going through." Signum announced.

She bolted forwards, disappearing through the near end of the portal and emerging directly in front of the wounded Angel. Without hesitation, she flew directly at it, swinging Laevatein at the Angel's left shoulder.

"Violet Lightning Flash!"

Flames erupted from Signum's hands and folded around the blade. The magically enhanced weapon cleaved the Angel's flesh like butter, cutting upwards through Israfel's left arm in an instant. The severed limb separated from the Angel's body amidst a torrent of blue blood, already beginning to dissolve into slurry as it fell towards the ground. The bulky Angel was unable to bring its skeletal face around to bear on Signum for a beam attack and instead tried to swat her with its remaining hand. Signum swung her sword back around in an easy backhand; though the fiery magic was beginning to fade from the blade, it was still enough to sever the Angel's fingers. However, used to sparring against opponents her own size, she had misjudged the danger posed by the Angel's action. Israfel wasn't trying to claw at her with its fingers — it intended to swat her as she would a fly. Even with the Angel's fingers gone, its palm rushed towards her with deadly force.

"I've got it!" Shamal said.

In an instant, another portal opened in the air between Signum and the onrushing hand. Overbalanced, the Angel stuck its arm through the portal up to the elbow. Before it could withdraw the limb, Shamal shut the portal, neatly severing it. Now completely armless, the Angel seemed to reassess its tactical situation. It took a giant leap backwards away from the Magical Girls. When it landed, its barrier flashed back into existence, once again separating the girls from it. A moment later, the twin waterfalls of blue blood pouring from its shoulders ceased as its limbs began to regenerate.

"I'm going to try a spell now." Hayate said. "Just give me a moment..."

Signum, well aware of Hayate's difficulty with precision aiming, quickly fell back towards the other girls as Hayate began building up magic. The pages of the tome Reinforce began flipping rapidly, seemingly of their own accord, as it hovered in front of her. At the same time, her brilliant white magic inscribed an emblem under her feet. The three-pointed sigil began rotating faster and faster as she built up power. Israfel, sensing danger from this small girl who now brimmed with power, hunkered down in preparation for her attack.

"Diabolic Emission!" Hayate intoned.

Nanoha didn't recognize it as any of the spells that Hayate had practiced during training, which she meant realized it was one of those so destructive that Hayate didn't dare attempt them anywhere near NERV. Not knowing what the spell's effect would be, Nanoha prepared to either rush to Hayate's aid if it looked like it wasn't working or else retreat to a safer distance if it looked like it was working _too_ well.

A sphere of energy sparked to life, hovering in the air in front of Israfel's barrier. However, while Hayate's magic was normally a brilliant white color, this sphere was pitch black. The black sphere began to expand, swelling to fill the area between the girls and the Angel. Israfel raised a glittering blue barrier between itself and the edge of the expanding darkness. The two made contact — and the barrier was instantly pulverized, the dark energy continuing to spread outwards unimpeded. A moment later, it had grown to such size that the girls could no longer see the Angel behind the pitch black sphere in front of them.

"How large is that thing going to get?" Nanoha asked.

"Not... much larger..." Hayate said.

A few beads of sweat ran down the side of her face; the spell had apparently put a significant strain on her. Nanoha had never channeled that much magic at time; she hoped Hayate could handle it.

"Are you okay?" Shamal asked.

"Yeah... Just a little tired." Hayate said. "I don't think... I can do very many spells in a row. Only one more, I think..."

"I don't think we'll be needing any more." Vita said. "It looks like you smoked it, Hayate."

The sphere of black energy suddenly collapsed back in on itself, shrinking down to a point and disappearing. It left a perfectly-cut crater in the ground — every piece of matter that the dark magic had touched had simply disappeared. It had destroyed even the air within the area of effect; there was a massive boom as the atmosphere rushed to fill the vacuum. However, now that the black energy was no longer blocking their vision, the girls could see that it had not destroyed Israfel — the agile Angel had scrambled backwards, keeping ahead of the sphere of annihilation. The Angel seemed to understand that it had suffered a close call, however; as the girls watched, it split down the middle and separated into two. One of the halves dashed to the left, the other to the right; putting distance between each other so they could not both be caught in a single spell.

"Damn." Vita said.

"Time to get serious." Nanoha said.

"We should engage the halves separately." Fate said. "They are most dangerous when fighting together in perfect unison. If we take advantage of them moving away from each other..."

"Right! We can keep them isolated! Fate, Vita — go right! Signum, take the left one with me! Shamal, look after Hayate until she gets her strength back up. Go for it!" Nanoha shouted.

The girls split apart and flew towards the Angels. The halves' instant reaction was to move back towards each other, so they could face the attackers together, but Nanoha had been expecting that. She had already begun charging an attack, and now released the pink energy from the tip of her staff.

"Divine Buster!" she shouted.

The twin Angels were forced to jump apart from each other again as the powerful beam attack passed between them. Signum, seeing the Angels put on the defensive, put on an extra burst of speed and approached the Angel on the left.

"Violet Lightning Flash!" Signum roared.

Flames wrapped around her sword as it clashed against the Angel's protective barrier. Empowered by the blazing magic coating it, Laevatein bit deeply into the defensive wall. The barrier began to split beneath the strike, and the Angel tried to backpedal further away from Signum. The Magical Girl was merciless in her assault, and pressed forward as her opponent backed away.

The other half of the Angel was moving to assist. It tried to cut behind Signum, to trap her between Israfel's two bodies. Fate, however, wouldn't allow it.

"Lightning Bind!" she shouted.

Yellow magic crackled to life around the flanking Angel, pinning its arms and legs in place. The Angel fired blasts of blue energy from its eyes, but Fate had stopped its motion before it could draw a bead on Signum. The deadly attacks went wide.

"Here I come!" Vita shouted. "Missile Hammer!"

Orange energy bloomed around the head of Graf Eisen. Vita dashed forwards, swinging the glowing hammer at the immobilized Angel. The mighty blow smashed resoundingly against the Angel's blue defensive barrier.

"Is that the best you've got?" Vita asked. "I'll tear right through you!"

The orange magic permeating Graf Eisen ignited, blazing out of the back half of the hammer like a rocket engine. With this added impulse, the weapon tore through the Angel's barrier, which shattered into glittering shard beneath the fury of Vita's strike. And Vita did not let up; she let the blazing energy roaring from her hammer carry her forwards, directly into the Angel's face. Graf Eisen penetrated the Angel's mask-like bone structure, tearing deep into its forehead. The blue fires of the Angel's beam weapon were suddenly extinguished as twin waterfalls of blue blood gushed from its hollow eyes.

The other half of the Angel, however, will still in possession of its own beam attack. Signum, though close to penetrating the Angel's crumbling barrier, was forced to cease her attack in order to defend against a blast.

"Panzer Geist!" Signum said at the last moment.

A flaming red barrier arose between her and the oncoming blue fire. Her shield held against the assault, preventing any of the deadly offensive magic from reaching her, but the force of the onslaught pushed her backwards. The Angel drove her away from its defensive barrier. Signum could only cast one spell at a time; she could not deliver the finishing blow against the Angel's failing barrier and protect herself at the same time. The Angel, however, had no difficulty with simultaneous attack and defense. Even as it continued pounding Signum's shield with beam attacks, it began reinforcing its defenses, trying to repair its damaged barrier.

"I'll block for you!" Nanoha called. "Take it down."

Nanoha flew up behind Signum's back and invoked, "Protection!" Her own pink shield appeared between the Angel's beam attack and Signum's defense. Signum immediately dropped her defensive spell and returned to the offensive.

"Flying Dragon Flash!" Signum shouted.

Flames once more coated Laevatein. This time, however, the sword itself split apart. It extended into a long, blade-studded whip. The fiery whip encircled the Angel, then tightened. The blue defensive barrier cracked and then shattered under this attack from all sides. The whip continued to tighten, wrapping itself around the Angel's body. The Angel let out a keening howl as the fiery magic cut into its flesh, sending jets of steam into the air as blood boiled out of the wounds.

"Everyone!" Shamal shouted. "Hayate's ready with another spell!"

The other Magical Girls quickly ceased their assaults, flying backwards to where Hayate and Signum were hovering. Hayate was floating with her eyes closed and hands outstretched, Reinforce suspended in the air between them; a blazing white sigil shone under her feet and others began glowing in the air in front of her. Nanoha recognized this spell, though Hayate had never poured so much magic into it during training. Hayate opened her eyes and then pointed at the Angels' positions.

"Hraesvelgr!" Hayate incanted.

The sigils floating in the air in front of flashed, then from each shot a blindingly brilliant beam of white magic. Half a dozen beams lanced through the air towards the positions of the two Angels. Hayate's aim wasn't good enough to strike either of the Angels directly; the beams plowed into the ground in only the general vicinity of each. However, this wasn't a spell that required great precision — where each beam struck the ground, a massive explosion was triggered. Furious white magic expanded in all directions from the impact points, completely enveloping both Angels.

"...I think that's it from me." Hayate said, closing her tome. "I'm completely spent."

"That's okay. You did really good, Hayate." Nanoha said.

The light from the blasts faded, revealing the Angels. Both were badly damaged: limbs twisted, flesh blistered, bones broken. As the Magical Girls watched, the two wounded halves staggered towards each other, trying to rejoin.

"Why don't you girls do the final honors?" Shamal invited.

"Glad to." Nanoha said. "Fate?"

"I am up for it." Fate said.

"Then let's pay this thing back for our first fight." Nanoha said.

She and Fate raised Raising Heart and Bardiche, pointing them at the two maimed Angels. The halves of Israfel had made contact with each other once more, and were starting to fuse together. This process seemed to be accelerating the regeneration of its flesh, but it had simply sustained too much damage to recover quickly. It was still not entirely finished with its fusion when Nanoha and Fate unleashed their magic.

"Divine Buster!" Nanoha announced.

"Thunder Smasher!" Fate concurred.

A beam of shining pink magic lanced out from Raising Heart at the same time as a beam of crackling yellow magic burst forth from Bardiche. The two beams of destructive power crossed each other in the air, then each slammed into one half of the Angel Israfel's divided core. Both of the gleaming red crystals shattered simultaneously, torn asunder by the girls' combined offensive magic. Israfel did not even have time to scream before the power blew its body apart. Gouts of blood and chunks of flesh sprayed outwards from the point of impact, then disintegrated into fading sparks of blue magic as the girls watched on.

"Congratulations on your first mission as Magical Girls." Nanoha told the new arrivals. "What do you think?"

"I think the Angels don't stand a chance!" Vita declared.

"I hope I did okay." Hayate said.

"Your magic was exceptional." Fate commended her.

"It was a good battle." Signum acknowledged.

"I'm glad to finally be able to help the war effort." Shamal said. "Maybe now, working together, we'll be able to defeat the Angels for good."

"That's what we're all hoping for." Nanoha said. "And I say this was a good start."

* * *

"I am concerned, Fuyutsuki." Precia said.

While most of NERV was celebrating the victory over the Angel, the two of them had retreated to the Commander's perpetually dark office to talk in private.

"I thought the battle went quite well." Fuyutsuki remarked.

"Not about the battle — about SEELE." Precia clarified. "When the old men sent me the new Magical Girls, I naturally expected them to be agents to spy on me and eliminate me if the need arose. However, as best as I am able to judge — and I am a _very good_ judge of character — they are ordinary girls. Loyal to SEELE, yes, but not fanatically so; it takes a certain type of person to carry out an assassination, and I do not think them capable. They do not even seem to be spies — they haven't made any attempt to communicate with SEELE since their arrival here."

"And this is a bad thing?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"Yes." Precia said. "If the old men aren't taking this opportunity to insert agents into my trust, it must be because they already have agents in place."

"What about Clyde?" Fuyutsuki asked. "He seems a rather obvious candidate."

"Too obvious." Precia mused. "An accredited representative of SEELE? The old men must've expected that I would suspect him."

"Then, by the same measure, wouldn't they expect you to suspect the Magical Girls as well?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"A valid point." Precia mused. "Perhaps I have been underestimating them. Sending fanatical loyalists to become Magical Girls, standing by to turn their powers against me at any time, would be an enormous advantage for SEELE... such an enormous advantage that the possibility occurred to me immediately. I made certain to scrutinize them intensely during their training, and if any of them had shown signs of being a double-agent, I would have had them eliminated immediately."

Though Precia's expression remained unchanged, Fuyutsuki could see a familiar glint in her eyes. They shone with genius and a hint of madness. Usually, it was easy for the professor to write off his former student's ramblings about the Council as mere paranoia. But whenever he saw that look in her eye, he got the unsettling feeling that perhaps he was an ignorant fool, and she was the only one who understood what was truly going on.

"The old men knew I would never allow a double-agent to sneak in through the Magical Girl candidates, so they didn't even try." Precia said. "They sent ordinary girls, content to let me waste time examining them for treachery that did not exist, while their true spies do their work elsewhere..."

"Why are you so certain that spies exist?" Fuyutsuki asked. "Now that they've confirmed that the Arc-En-Ciel is functional, they wouldn't need an assassin to eliminate you. They could annihilate the entire base at any time."

"The Arc-En-Ciel is too blunt a weapon to be wielded carelessly." Precia said. "They will only deploy it against NERV if they are certain that the Black Mother will survive the blast."

"So it's about Lilith." Fuyutsuki said.

"Yes!" Precia said triumphantly. "It is all about Lilith. They could build a new NERV, appoint a new Commander of Anti-Angel Operations, construct a new MAGI system... but there is only one Black Mother. Getting into a position where they believed I was loyal enough to be trusted with Her custody was my greatest victory over the old men. Now, She is my hostage against them. They will not dare move against me until Her safety can be assured."

"...Hence the need for infiltrators." Fuyutsuki.

"Full marks, professor." Precia said.

"Clyde has access to Terminal Dogma, doesn't he?" Fuyutsuki asked. "I recall that he insisted upon it."

"He may be able to access it, but he can only observe." Precia said. "And I will most certainly keep him under the strictest observation during those times. No, any spy or spies they have placed are elsewhere... somewhere I will not think to look. The problem being, of course, that I cannot think where I would not think to look."

Precia let out a grim chuckle at her own humor.

"What do you intend to do, then?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"Now that I understand the Council's decision, I will exploit it." Precia said ruthlessly. "In every misfortune lie the seeds of an opportunity. So the new Magical Girls are just ordinary girls, rather than the fanatics I expected? This means that SEELE's means of infiltration will not be so easily identified — but it also means that they have provided me with yet another weapon to turn against them. I will subvert these girls' loyalties, turn them against their former masters and make them loyal soldiers for my cause. I was so certain that the Council would not hand me four more Magical Girls that could be turned against them, I think I understand now... the old men think it does not matter, because they have placed their faith in the Arc-En-Ciel. Such arrogance! I will find a way to break that toy before it can be used against me, and then they will regret delivering these girls into my grasp."

"Yes, Commander." Fuyutsuki said, as he often did when he could think of no other response.

"Subverting the new Magical Girls will be a long-term project, of course." Precia said. "They might not be fanatics like I initially feared, but they do have the healthy sense of loyalty towards SEELE one would expect, given the organization took them in after they lost their homes and families, provided them with education and training, and promised them the chance to obtain magic. It will take longer for us to obtain their loyalty than it did for Nanoha or Fate. With regard to more immediate matters, I think it is time for us to contact the news and reveal the true story behind Second Impact."

"Our story." Fuyutsuki automatically corrected. "Not precisely the true story."

"You are too pedantic, professor." Precia sighed. "We will simply substitute the UN for SEELE as the villain of the tale. A simple story for simple people must have a clear villain, after all. The average person does not know the slightest thing about SEELE, and so does not have any preconceived notions about them; expose the conspiracy to them, and they simply would not know what to think. But those incompetent buffoons in the UN... Many people already hate them for using the Second Impact to suppress nationalism and unify the world under their thumb. They will easily be accepted as villains; no one will doubt that they could have been responsible for the catastrophe."

"I defer to your clearly superior expertise." Fuyutsuki said. "I'll send word to the Public Relations division. They've been ready for a while; with your authorization, they can break the news immediately."

"Good." Precia said. "Let us see how the old men respond to this."

* * *

The day following the battle against Israfel, Nanoha and Fate were back in school like usual. Nanoha had at first thought that Hayate and Vita would be transferring into her class, but Clyde told her that the girls had been privately educated by SEELE rather than going through the public school system; officially, they were considered to be home-schooled, though he confessed that their education had been focused far more on Angel-related matters than the approved curriculum. The fact of the matter was, they wouldn't be able to integrate smoothly into public school at this point, so the decision had been made not to enroll them. Nanoha was somewhat disappointed by this; she wanted to get to know the girls better, and being able to meet with them in an environment other than training at NERV would have been helpful in that regard. She resolved to instead volunteer to give them a tour of Tokyo-3.

Though Nanoha liked what she had seen of the girls so far, she was also a little worried. The way Clyde had talked about conflict between NERV and SEELE, Nanoha couldn't help but mentally divide the Magical Girls into two groups: herself and Fate, who were loyal to NERV; and Hayate and her friends, who were loyal to SEELE. Nanoha dreaded the thought that, should open conflict erupt between NERV and SEELE, the Magical Girls might be forced to fight amongst one another.

Nanoha thought of how her relationship with Fate had changed. When they had first met, Fate had been unquestioningly obedient to Commander Testarossa. If her mother had ordered her to fight Nanoha, she would probably have obeyed unhesitatingly. Now, however, that the two girls had fought together, gone to school together, and become friends, Nanoha was certain that Fate would never hurt her under any circumstances.

Nanoha had now fought side by side with the new girls, but their relationship was still a professional one. She wanted to know them personally as well. She was confident that if they developed strong enough bonds, they would be able to stand together no matter what happened.

Nanoha was preparing to leave school and take the bus back to Lindy's apartment when Fate approached her.

"Nanoha, I have been thinking. About your offer." Fate said hesitantly.

"You have?" Nanoha asked hopefully.

Fate hesitated for a moment as she thought back to her punishment at the hands of her beloved mother, to the disappointment that had shone in Precia's eyes. Even now, after their successful rematch against the Angel, she could not forget how humiliated Precia had been by her initial failure. She simply couldn't bear the thought of causing any more pain to her mother, even accidentally. This would be as much for her mother's good than her own. That thought gave Fate the courage she needed to continue.

"Looking back, I think I have been acting unreasonably selfish. I did not want to move out of Mother's apartment because I wanted to stay close to her. But... perhaps my actions have actually been burdening her. Since she does not have the time to look after me herself, she has to assign other NERV personnel to do it. Some people probably criticize her for it — I know that you just have my best interests at heart, Nanoha, but a lot of people Mother works with would not hesitate to use details of her personal life for political advantage. I really do not want to cause any more problems for Mother than I already have. It would probably put her mind at ease to know that Lindy was looking after me — and since she has done such a good job being your caretaker, no one could accuse Mother of leaving me in negligent hands. So... if your offer still stands... I guess I wouldn't mind moving in... with you. And Lindy! I mean..." Fate trailed off, blushing furiously.

"Oh, Fate, that's wonderful!" Nanoha said.

She stepped forward and caught her friend up in a tight hug, which if anything caused Fate's face to turn an even brighter red.

"I, uh, haven't told Mother yet, but I'm certain she will agree if I can make her understand that I'm doing it for her sake, because I love her so much. Mother is a very logical person; she is sure to see why it would be reasonable for me to leave."

"Well, if your mother okays it, Lindy will be happy to take you in." Nanoha said. "And I'll be _very_ happy to live with you.

"...I will talk to Mother tonight." Fate said. "I will call and let you know her response."

"I'll look forward to it." Nanoha said.

She left school in an excellent mood, which only increased as she took the bus back to Lindy's apartment. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that this new living arrangement would be beneficial for Fate. However hard Fate protested her love for her mother, Nanoha knew that her home life wasn't fulfilling. Though Fate's interpersonal skills had now improved to the point where she was capable of normal social interaction, Nanoha still remember how desperately lonely she had been when they first met. Fate's eyes had not been those of a girl with a loving, attentive mother, but of an emotionally stunted girl who had never felt loved. Nanoha didn't care if Precia was her boss now; she might be a good commander, but all evidence pointed to her being a bad mother. Fate needed a better home environment. Nanoha had lived with Lindy long enough to know that the Major was as kind and loving a person as her own parents. Fate would enjoy living with her.

What Nanoha was doing wasn't just for Fate's sake; she herself was also greatly looking forward to it. Nanoha had never had difficulty making friends, but she'd never felt about them the way she felt about Fate. From the first moment Nanoha had looked into Fate's said, beautiful eyes, she had felt a desire to get closer to the girl. It was a feeling Nanoha didn't quite understand herself. Whenever she was with Fate, she felt a desire to touch her, to run her hands over her delicate skin; to gaze deep into her soulful eyes and

Nanoha realized she was blushing for some reason. Pushing her thoughts of Fate out of her mind for the moment, she headed up to Lindy's apartment and hurried in.

"Lindy!" she called cheerfully. "I've got great news!"

When her shout was answered by silence, Nanoha knew immediately that something was wrong. Lindy usually greeted her immediately when she arrived back at the apartment. Something must be terribly wrong for her to ignore Nanoha this way.

"Lindy?" Nanoha asked, stepping deeper into the suddenly foreboding apartment.

Hearing sounds coming from the direction of the living room, Nanoha ran through the doorway. She immediately took in the scene: Lindy was sitting on the couch, staring at the television with a slack-jawed expression of absolute horror on her face. Nanoha had never seen such a look of absolute despair on the Major face, not even during her depression following the failed UN attack on Ramiel.

"Lindy!" Nanoha asked.

Lindy didn't even acknowledge Nanoha's entrance into the room; all of her attention was focused on the television set. Nanoha turned to look at the screen, to see what could evoke such revulsion in the woman who had become her second mother; and after a moment, the words being spoken by the anchor of the news program penetrated her consciousness.

"...have confirmed the authenticity of the evidence. This makes it clear that the Second Impact was not, as widely reported until now, a first strike against humanity by the Angels; but rather a controlled event knowingly initiated by the UN. The Harlaown Expedition was dispatched with the express intent of triggering a cataclysmic event to destabilize the existing government structure and allow the UN to consolidate power as a new world order. It was further known that this action would provoke the eons-dormant Angels into a genocidal war against humanity, providing a command enemy which would give the UN reason to take command of all the world's military forces. The billions who have died, and the specter of annihilation which continues to loom over us all, can be directly traced to the abominable actions committed by Commander Harlaown and his crew..."

Before Nanoha's eyes, Major Lindy began softly weeping.


	15. Mother Of Angels

**Chapter 15: Mother Of Angels**

The New Dead Sea had been teeming with UN ships ever since the catastrophic destruction of Antarctica which formed it. At first they had been science vessels, sent to investigate the source of the continent's annihilation. As the years passed on, their official mission had been modified to studying the long-term effects of the disaster, thus justifying the significant expenditure necessary to maintain their continued presence. Once Sachiel had swum forth from the lifeless waters, the UN had made it known that they were filling the New Dead Sea with military vessels to intercept the awakening Angels at their source. Of course, it immediately became apparent that conventional weapons were utterly ineffective against the Angels, and the UN hastily clarified that their ships were not there to actually _engage_ the Angels, but to detect them as quickly as possible so that NERV could be alerted and an intercept by Magical Girls planned.

All excuses. The fleet's true purpose had not changed since SEELE ordered them to begin combing the frigid waters in the immediate wake of Second Impact. Even among those who knew the truth behind the event, it was commonly assumed that Adam had been destroyed; surely nothing could have survived the nova of energy that had altered the axial tilt of the planet itself. A select few, however, knew better. They had imbibed the blood of Lilith, filtered through the MAGI to extract all knowledge of Adam; and the Harlaown Expedition had been dispatched o its doomed mission with the understanding that the resultant event, however destructive, would not be the end of the being which was Progenitor of all Angelic life.

Adam was not destroyed in the cataclysm. She was, however, greatly reduced; an Angelic being's body was composed of its magical energy, and so with the vast majority of Her power expended during Second Impact Adam had been reduced to a virtually embryonic state. At the heart of the expanding sphere of destruction that had consumed Antarctica was a tiny clump of Angelic matter: the core of Adam's being. It had sunk into the turbulent seas, buffeted this way and that by the violent tides unleashed by the apocalypse, and fallen into the deepest depths of the New Dead Sea. The embryonic Adam was lost — but not forever.

Adam had lain dormant in a near-catatonic slumber for billions of years, but Second Impact provided one hell of a wake-up call. Even as Her body was annihilated, Her mind was roused. Adam began to awaken. And like Lilith, whose consciousness was a siren call that the Angels could detect even from the depths of the New Dead Sea, Adam's mind began to call out to the Lilim. During Her dormancy, the strength of Her call had been nearly negligible, extending only meters. But as Her awareness began to grow, so did the strength and range of her alluring call. And fifteen years after Second Impact, it finally became strong enough to attract the attention of one of the ships floating on the surface above.

* * *

"Target has been captured and contained. The dive vehicle is ascending now." the helmsman of the UN battleship _Cymbeline_ reported.

"That easily?" Captain Yanagihara frowned. "From the strength of the magic emissions, I thought this Angel would already be awake and ready to put up a fight."

"It could be a ploy." one of the lieutenants suggested. "Play dead, let us take it up into our belly and then strike from within."

"Angels don't _need_ to use ploys." another lieutenant fired back. "If it wanted to kill us, it could tear the _Cymbeline_ open like a tin can and there's nothing we could do to stop it."

"I won't tolerate that kind of talk!" Captain Yanagihara snapped.

"Are the readings accurate?" First Officer Goto asked. "Perhaps the tracking unit is malfunctioning."

"It wouldn't be the first time." Captain Yanagihara said. "Blasted MAGI units. Bad enough having to rely on a brain in a box, but half of them go insane not a month after manufacture."

"All diagnostics are green." the helmsman said. "And all of the other readings are normal; when a MAGI unit goes screwy, all of the data usually turns bad at once. This seems to be exactly what you'd expect of an embryonic Angel... except that the radiant magic levels are higher than anything ever recorded."

"And you're certain it's not awake?" Captain Yanagihara probed.

"No motion, smooth energy output... looks asleep to me." the helmsman said.

"Then... this could be Her." the Captain swallowed. "The White Mother."

"Is there any way to be sure?" First Officer Goto asked.

"What else could produce these readings?" Captain Yanagihara demanded.

"If we're going to tell the Council we have the White Mother, we better be damn well certain it's really Her." First Officer Goto said. "Did you hear what happened to the last captain who called in a false alarm?"

"Dive vehicle has reached the bay, docking now." the helmsman said.

At that moment, they all felt it. A pain in their hearts, a nameless longing; an urge to abandon their posts, run down to the dive pool, and become one with the Angelic being contained there. It was a reflection of the irresistible urge that drove the Angels to journey across the sea and attack Japan — as water is drawn to dryness, as Angels are drawn to Lilith, so are Lilim drawn to Adam. When that feeling came over them, there could no longer be any doubt they were in the presence of the White Mother.

"Lock down the dive vehicle." Captain Yanagihara ordered. "No one is to open it before delivery. The White Mother must be kept secure until we turn it over to SEELE."

"Yes, sir." the helmsman said, visibly struggling against the sudden compulsion of the White Mother's call.

He flipped a series of switches on his control board, putting the dive bay into an irreversible lockdown. No one would be getting in there without the access codes held only by their masters at SEELE, or else a modicum of high explosives. Extremely strict security measures had been put in place for all ships involved in the search for Adam. The pull of the White Mother would be even stronger in the areas of the ship near the dive bay; even the most well-trained crew members might be overcame by a mad desire to touch Her. This possibility was unacceptable to SEELE — such contact would trigger Third Impact; and if Adam had not had time to fully recover from the previous one, She might not survive this one. The utmost care had therefore been taken in setting up mechanisms to quarantine the dive bay until this most dangerous cargo could be safely delivered.

"Lockdown complete." the helmsman said"Should I set a new heading?"

"Yes." the Captain turned towards a nautical map that was pinned to one of the command deck walls. "We'll transfer the White Mother to a SEELE retrieval team at —"

He was cut short by two sharp barks of First Officer Goto's pistol. The bullets tore through Captain Yanagihara's head, splashing the wall with blood and bits of bone. As the Captain toppled to the deck, it was clear that he was already dead.

"Belay that." First Officer Goto said. "I am assuming control of this vessel. The White Mother is to be delivered to Commander Testarossa of NERV."

There was a moment of silence, and then one of the lieutenants attempted to draw his firearm. Goto, with his gun already out, was faster; he snapped off another two shots, and the lieutenant fell amidst a spray of blood.

"Does anyone else have a problem with my orders!" Goto demanded, swinging his pistol around to cover the other members of command deck.

The remaining lieutenant shook his head and held his hands away from his gun.

"New course... sir?" the helmsman asked.

"To the coast of Japan. We must turn over the White Mother before SEELE learns we have it, or they'll send another ship to intercept us." Goto turned to the lieutenant. "Seal the door to the command deck! No else gets into this room until the cargo has been delivered!"

Under Goto's command, the _Cymbeline_ turned North and began to carry its unearthly cargo towards Japan, where NERV awaited its arrival.

* * *

Precia entered her office to find Fuyutsuki waiting for her. The old professor was one of exceptionally few people she trusted enough to allow access to her office when she was not present. Though Precia had been in the middle of an important discussion with Dr. Akagi regarding the compatibility-boosting serum, she had immediately cut it short upon receiving Fuyutsuki's request for a private meeting.

"Fuyutsuki. I trust you would not interrupt if it were not important." Precia said.

"A UN vessel has recovered the White Mother." Fuyutsuki said without preamble.

"One of ours or one of theirs?" Precia asked, her voice dropping to a whisper.

"The captain was a loyalist, but the first mate is one of ours. He killed the captain and has commandeered the vessel. Civil war seems to have broken out amongst the crew, but the bridge and the dive chamber are in the hands of our agents." Fuyutsuki said.

"That is not enough. The loyalists might still shut the vessel down if they take the engine room, or in the worst case scuttle the vessel to keep Adam out of our hands. Send combat teams to take over the vessel — by helicopter, by boat, by anything we have. We cannot take even the slightest risk with Adam; She is the last, most crucial element to our plan."

"Yes, Commander." Fuyutsuki said.

Precia's emotions, usually so well controlled, were begin to show through. Fuyutsuki could see the corners of her mouth twitching upwards, the gleam of triumph shining in her eyes.

"Victory, Fuyutsuki." Precia said. "The most risky portion of the plan was always going to be seizing Adam from the old men... I was forced to consider the possibility that SEELE loyalists would find Her first, that we would be forced to launch an assault to recover Her from their grasp. To think that we would actually succeed in laying hands on Her first... This scenario is the best I could have possibly hoped for. We have everything we need now, to bring our plan to fruition."

_Her_ plan to fruition, Fuyutsuki thought; she was the schemer, the architect of the plot to bring down SEELE and prevent Human Instrumentality. Sometimes it seemed his only real duty was to stand behind her shoulder; but it was a role he accepted, if only for those brief moments when he could speak into her ear like a conscience, and pull his old student back from the edge of the abyss he felt her leaning over. Precia had changed, since the days he felt he'd truly known her; and not for the better. And while he was still committed to stopping the Committee's plan for Instrumentality, he was beginning to wonder whether Precia's own plans were really any better.

Precia reached out and put a hand on Fuyutsuki's shoulder. The old professor was surprised; the Commander was not one prone to physical gestures of affection.

"Do not doubt now, Fuyutsuki, my old friend; not now that the end is finally within sight." Precia said.

Precia's eyes were filled with an uncharacteristic warmth. The Commander usually was as cold and emotionless as a machine; seeing her act so human calmed some of the turmoil in Fuyutsuki's heart. He felt like he'd gotten a glimpse behind Precia's mask. It was reassuring to think that, though she might act the part of the ruthless Machiavellian commander, underneath the facade she was still the woman he'd once known. Though things had gotten rough, the end was now within sight; soon enough the war would end and the burden of command would be lifted from Precia's back. Then, with her ambitions achieved, Precia would return to the kind and caring person she once was.

That was what Fuyutsuki would have liked to think. Still, there was at least one dark corner of the old man's mind that didn't buy it. He had seen the Commander's skill and manipulating others once too often to be taken in by this act. He knew that she was skilled not only at hiding her true emotions, but also at faking emotional displays. As much as he wanted to think that she hadn't changed since their days as professor and student, he couldn't erase the memories of what the Commander had done to Fate. The Precia he had once respected could never have done that to her own daughter.

On the surface, Fuyutsuki gave every indication that he was drawing strength from Precia's kind words and reaffirming his commitment to seeing thins through to the end; but privately, he was wondering which of her pawns the Commander would sacrifice next.

* * *

Nanoha softly pressed a steaming cup of tea into Lindy's hands. The Major had hardly spoken since Nanoha had turned the TV off, and spent the last several minutes crying to herself. It frightened Nanoha to see Lindy so despondent. It would've been better if she had been furious; you can use anger, turn it into action. But the Major was acting like her fighting spirit had been utterly crushed. Nanoha couldn't bear to see someone she admired so much suffer like this, and tried to think of a way to comfort Lindy. Unfortunately, it wasn't an area in which she had much experience; the only thing she could think of was to make tea. It's what her mother always did when she came home from school scraped and bruised from getting into fights. She'd gotten into a fair number of scuffles at her old school — the bullies knew better than to pick on her, but she couldn't help but come to the defense of anyone she saw being bullied, even kids she didn't know. She hadn't gotten into any fights since coming to Tokyo-3, due to everyone recognizing her as a Magical Girl, so she wasn't sure what Lindy's preferred method of giving comfort was — let alone the form of comfort she preferred receiving.

The situation seemed absurd. The parent was supposed to comfort the child, not the other way around; and Nanoha really had come to view Lindy as a parent to her, looking up to her with the same respect as she had for her real mother. How could she, a young girl, provide any comfort to a woman who was an army Major and a parental figure? Nanoha wished she could call Clyde. He and the Major had a past together; he'd surely know what to do. Unfortunately, she hadn't been able to get through to him; his phone had been continuously busy since the news broadcast. It wasn't surprising; the allegation that Second Impact was triggered deliberately was so shocking that NERV must be in an absolute frenzy right now, trying to figure out if it was true. And so, for the moment, there was no one but Nanoha to comfort Lindy.

It didn't seem to be going very well so far; Lindy had acknowledged Nanoha with a listless "thanks" upon receiving the cup, but hadn't taken so much as a single sip of tea since. Come to think of it... Nanoha found herself recalling the first time Lindy had shown her the apartment they shared. Hadn't she taken her tea unusually? Yes, she'd added sugar to it, Nanoha now recalled. She quickly fetched some sugar cubes and dissolved them into the green tea.

This finally caught Lindy's attention. Though she still did not drink the tea, she raised her head and acknowledged Nanoha with a wan smile.

"You remembered." she said.

"It's a rather distinctive way to drink tea." Nanoha said mildly.

Lindy held the cup tightly in both hands and looked down into the liquid's steaming surface.

"My mother was British. I picked up the habit of having sugar with tea from her. But I guess I inherited my taste for green tea from... my father..."

"Tell me about him." Nanoha said.

"My father..." Lindy toyed with her teacup. "I remember him as, above all, a good man. My memories of him from back then aren't too clear... just faint impressions. He was loving, supportive... perfect."

Nanoha noticed that Lindy's hands were trembling.

"Drink the tea," she suggested. "It'll make you feel better."

Lindy drank, then took a moment to compose herself.

"Most of what I know is what my mother told me." Lindy said. "He didn't end up working for the UN by chance; even when they first met, he'd already known what he planned to do in life. Mom told me... dad said he wanted to work for the UN so he could make the world a better place. He wanted to help _everyone_ — to work not just for the sake of his family or his country, but the sake of everyone in the world. And whenever he talked about it, his voice had such passion that she never for a moment doubted he would become a Commander..."

Lindy pushed away her empty cup, and Nanoha quickly stood to pour her more.

"I'm fine now, thanks." Lindy said. "It was hard to start talking about my father; these are things I've been keeping pent up for so long. But I think I'm ready, now... to tell you everything. Let's go somewhere more comfortable."

Lindy led Nanoha into her room and the two sat side by side on the Major's bed. Nanoha realized that Lindy was preparing to bare her heart to her; she had moved to this room because it was a private place where she felt comfortable voicing her most intimate secrets.

"After Second Impact, I thought, like everybody else, that it had been a preemptive strike against humanity by the Angels. The moment I finished school, I headed straight to NERV and signed on. It was only after I made Captain that I learned the truth about Second Impact. The destruction wasn't an intentional attack by Adam; it was an accident triggered by something my father did. Someone on his expedition, in any case; there's no way of telling exactly who, and I doubt it matters. It probably wasn't even intentional. It was the Harlaown Expedition, so the culpability falls on the Harlaown name."

"I learned in school that Adam self-destructed after being uncovered from the ice by the Harlaown Expedition." Nanoha said. "The magical energy released killed half the people on Earth. When the Angels started waking up, we were told that the magic released by Adam had woken them up, prepared them for war. Were these lies part of the cover-up?"

"Well, they're partly true." Lindy said. "Adam did self-destruct, in a manner of speaking; and the magical blast both devastated the world and triggered the awakening of the Angels. However, the explosion wasn't meant to be an weapon, or a wake-up call. It wasn't even intentional. It was a _rejection reaction_."

"A... rejection reaction?" Nanoha repeated in confusion.

"Do you remember the pain you felt when you first bonded with Raising Heart?" Lindy asked. "Terrestrial life is inherently devoid of magical power, hence the need for artificial Linker Cores to create Magical Girls. However, when the Device is first implanted, the body recognizes the magical power as foreign. It attempts to reject it. If the compatibility is too low, the body will destroy itself entirely."

Lindy shuddered at the thought.

"I've never seen a fatal rejection reaction myself, but Dr. Akagi has." Lindy said. "Apparently they had tried bonding Bardiche to other candidates before succeeding with Fate. Ritsuko refuses to talk about it. She gets a real sickly look whenever I ask. Maybe I'm better off not knowing."

This was most unpleasant food for thought for Nanoha. She recalled how nervous Dr. Akagi had been when giving the new Magical Girls their Devices, and got the feeling that she was perhaps luckier than she'd previous realized.

"What does this have to do with Second Impact?" Nanoha pressed.

"The rejection reaction isn't unique to humans." Lindy said. "It works both ways. Living matter and magic energy are antithetical to each other; they come from different sources and react violently when they come into contact. In very special cases, when certain compatibility factors are high enough, it is possible for a human to integrate an artificial Linker Core into themselves and become capable of wielding magic. However, Magical Girls like you are much more the exception than the norm. In almost all instances, when magic and flesh come into contact, they're incompatible — they turn against each other and destroy each other. When an incompatible human is exposed to magic, their body can't take it; every cell in their body rejects it, destroying themselves in the process. Even trying to absorb a small amount of magic can cause a fatal rejection reaction. And... it's the same with Angels, only for living tissue. An Angel's body isn't really made of flesh and blood; it's pure magic, shaped into the semblance of flesh. When that magic is exposed to human flesh, the rejection reaction causes the Angel to lose all control. The magic reacts to the contact by changing into pure destructive power, essentially turning the Angel into a giant bomb. Just like a human, its body destroys itself; unlike a human, that body is composed of enough energy to destroy a great deal more besides. Of course, we didn't _know_ that back then. Second Impact was the first ever rejection reaction."

It was a huge amount of information for Nanoha to process.

"Wait a minute." Nanoha said, thinking furiously. "Does that mean, if I ever come into direct contact with an Angel during battle, it could explode!"

"No, you don't have to worry about that." Lindy says. "You've already successfully bonded with an Intelligent Device. Your body is compatible, capable of absorbing the magic produced by an artificial Linker Core without suffering a fatal rejection reaction. By now, your body has become completely saturated with magic. It is only living flesh devoid of magic which will trigger an Angel's rejection reaction"

"That's a relief." Nanoha said. "You had me scared for a moment."

"Mind, I've heard that the idea of triggering rejection reactions as an offensive tactic was considered in the early days of NERV." Lindy said darkly. "The plan was to take some poor saps — prisoners, probably — and fling them into the Angels so that they'd self-destruct. The scientists put a hold on that idea pretty quick, though. There's no way to predict how much energy any given Angel might release during a rejection reaction — it could be enough to cause Second Impact all over again. When our dear Commander took charge, she dropped the idea in favor of the Magical Girl program. At the time, I thought highly of her for it. She was never very personable, but she seemed... more reasonable back then."

Lindy inclined her head.

"When I learned that my father was responsible for Second Impact, I was devastated. The idea that the man I respected so much was responsible for so much death and destruction... I'll never believe that he did it deliberately. He couldn't have known what would happen. I've always assumed that he just got carried away by his emotions. That upon seeing this wondrous giant of light in the cavern below the ice, he couldn't resist the urge to step forwards and touch Her with his own hands... There's no proof it was him in particular, as opposed to any of his crewmen, but for some reason I always picture it as him. I've had so many nightmares about it that I've started to feel like I was actually there, watching him stretch out his hand, nothing but curiosity and excitement on his face, watching as his flesh met with rejection my Adam's magic, watching as the... explosion..." Lindy couldn't continue.

Nanoha reached out and touched Lindy's arm. The Major took a calming breath.

"And now the whole world thinks of him as a monster." Lindy concluded. "Either a knowing and willing perpetrator of the extermination of half the human race, or an ignorant stooge of the UN who was tricked into it. _Damn_ Precia! Damn her! She personally promised me, on the day I was promoted to Captain, promised me that she'd keep the truth of the Harlaown Expedition under wraps. That she'd let people keep thinking he was a victim rather than the perpetrator. And idiot that I am, I trusted her."

"You think the Commander contacted the news?" Nanoha asked.

"I don't see who else could have been responsible." Lindy said. "The only people who knew were members of NERV and SEELE. I doubt it could've been revealed without the permission of the higher-ups — they successfully kept it under wraps for fifteen years, after all. And SEELE are the ones with the most to lose from the revelation, since this is pretty much certain to result in massive public hostility against the UN. No, this has Precia written all over it."

Nanoha thought back to her conversation with Clyde. He expected a war between NERV and SEELE over who would command the incredible magic powers granted by the Intelligent Devices. Nanoha tried to consider current events in that context. It was rather difficult for her, as she was far from an expert in the complex international politics that everyone seemed to insist were brewing behind the scenes. The UN had been acting as a world government since before she'd been born; the idea that there were still people who remembered the days of independent national governments and resented the UN for taking control of their countries hadn't even occurred to her until Clyde had brought it up. The disposition of the Intelligent Devices was something she felt more comfortable speculating about. As she understood it, the Devices were manufactured by SEELE but shipped to NERV to be bonded to Magical Girls. SEELE produced the Devices and NERV employed them; neither could function without the other. However, since the existence of SEELE was a closely guarded secret to those not in their employ, she supposed that it was officially a UN facility which produced the Devices. Suppose the public, believing that the UN had engineered Second Impact to gain power, worried that they would use their production of the Devices to gain superiority in the coming war, mass producing Magical Girls to act as an army of super-soldiers? Well, they might demand that Device production be turned over to NERV, who they trusted following the continued victories against the Angels. Then the Commander would be in the position to do exactly what they feared of the UN.

Well, it was possible, but Nanoha wasn't very confident in her deductions. For one thing, she had no idea how the Intelligent Devices were actually created. Was it even possible to mass-produce them they way she was imagining? It had been 15 years since Second Impact, and in all that time they'd apparently only managed to make six of them; the process was probably terribly complicated. And from Lindy said about rejection reactions, it wasn't something you wanted to be haphazard about, either, as an incorrect attempt to introduce magic to living tissue would kill the organism and send the magic out of control. All in all, there wasn't enough information for her to be sure of anything.

"Why do you think the Commander would leak the news?" Nanoha fished.

"Oh, Precia's never made any secret of the fact that she'll screw over anyone she needs to in order to get what she wants." Lindy said. "I saw it happen to other people countless times, but somehow imagined she'd never do it to me. Precia... doesn't care about other people. If she saw any advantage to leaking the story, any advantage at all, she'd do it without the slightest worry about my feelings."

"If she'll betray anyone... do you think she could be planning to betray SEELE?" Nanoha pressed.

Lindy hesitated at the question, and Nanoha realized that it was probably something she herself had been worrying about since learning of the Commander's betrayal.

"...When I first started working for NERV, I wouldn't have said so." Lindy finally said, caution in her voice. "But now... I'm not so sure. She's gotten harder. Crueler. And tension between NERV and the higher-ups has really been growing lately. Clyde is trying to pretend everything is fine, but I can tell his superiors are leaning on him. Honestly, I have to say that it's a possibility."

Nanoha had to repress a shudder. Somehow, hearing those words from the Major made the situation seem so much more real.

"Which side are we on?" Nanoha asked.

"What do you mean?" Lindy asked.

"If the Commander does intend to betray her bosses, and if a war is going to break out... which side should we be on? NERV or SEELE?" Nanoha asked.

"That's not an easy question." Lindy said somberly. "I have a lot of friends in both organizations. I don't want to be forced to choose between them. But I can promise you one thing, Nanoha."

"What?" Nanoha inquired.

"Whatever happens, I'll be on _your_ side." Lindy said. "I promised your parents that I would take care of you while you were in Tokyo-3, and by God I'm going to do it. No matter what battle lines get drawn, no matter how the conflict shakes out, you will be safe so long as you're with me."

"Thank you, Lindy." Nanoha said.

She sighed with relief. Major Lindy really had become something of a second mother to her; she wouldn't have been able to stand being forced to fight on the opposite side as her.

"Hey, I am supposed to be looking after you after all." Lindy said. "Though today it seems more like you've been looking after me."

"It's okay, I understand." Nanoha said. "I could see how badly this news hurt you. I don't think anyone can blame you for having a small breakdown; anyone else would've done the same. In fact, I bet a lot of people would still be crippled by their depression. You're a very strong person, Major; no one can deny that. So it's okay to cry a little."

Lindy put a hand on Nanoha's shoulder.

"I'm not over this." she said. "I probably won't be for a long time. This isn't something our dear Commander will be able to gloss over with an apology. But, well, I'm not going to accomplish anything by hiding in my room and sulking. I think I'd like to follow your example."

"My example?" Nanoha asked, confused.

"You got way more than you bargained for when you agreed to come to Tokyo-3." Lindy said. "You've been forced to battle monsters, become responsible for protecting an entire city, had the entire world placed on your shoulders... and you've never faltered. No matter how tough it's gotten, no matter how many problems have been forced upon you, you've never faltered. I want to be like that, too. Continuing to do my best no matter what hardships I face. And maybe, some day, I'll be as strong as you."

Lindy stood up to leave.

"That's enough mourning." Lindy declared. "It's time to do something about it."

"Lindy!" Nanoha said urgently. "One more thing!"

"Yes?" Lindy asked.

"From what you've told me, you thought your father was a good man. And I trust your judgement more than anyone else in the world. So if anyone tells you anything bad about your father, anything about him committing crimes against humanity or being a stooge of a UN, then _they are wrong_. What do they know about your father? You knew him better than anyone else still alive; so if you say that he wasn't an evil man, that he would never do what they're accusing him of, then I believe you. And who cares what anyone else says? Because no matter how many lies the Commander or the media might try to spread, you and I know the truth. We know that we are right and they are wrong. So let them say whatever you want about your father, because at the end of the day, they're all nothing but _fools and liars_, while your father continues to be _a good man_."

Nanoha's tirade left her panting for breath. Lindy paused, looked down at the girl for a few moments, then finally spoke.

"Thank you. You truly are a good person, Nanoha."

* * *

A short while later, Lindy spoke on the phone to Fate.

"And your mother said it was okay?" Lindy asked.

"That is right." Fate said. "So long as I still get to school and training on time, I can live wherever I want."

"Alright, then, it's fine by me." Lindy said. "When would you like to move in?"

"How about tomorrow morning?" Fate asked.

"Fine by me. I'll see you then." Lindy said.

Lindy hung up the phone and returned it to its cradle.

"So she's really coming over?" Nanoha asked.

"Well, I don't know how, but I guess she must've convinced her mother." Lindy said. "She'll move in tomorrow, so better get your room cleaned up. I'll get out an extra futon for her."

"Good. I'll feel much better once she's away from the Commander." Nanoha said. "I can't bear to think of her getting hurt anymore."

"I'm sorry I doubted you when you told me your concerns." Lindy said. "After what Precia's done to me, I'm not finding it all too hard to believe she could be cruel to Fate as well. Precia has done a very good job as a Commander, but I'm starting to believe she's not all that good of a person."

"I hope Fate will be safe now." Nanoha said. "I think her love for her mother is genuine... but I'm afraid the Commander might betray her like she betrayed you."

"I won't allow her to do that to anyone else." Lindy said, quietly but firmly. "Not ever."

Nanoha could only hope that it was a promise the Major would be able to keep.


	16. The Angel Of Tears And Embryos

**Chapter 16: The Angel Of Tears And Embryos**

Ritsuko Akagi entered the storage room to which the Commander had summoned her. She had never been to this particular room before; it was quite inconveniently located, in the bowels of the deepest levels of Central Dogma, and was not currently being used to store anything. In fact, according to the MAGI, the entire subsector was currently unused and had been closed off to reduce electrical costs; it was only with a special security key provided by the Commander that she was able to access it at all.

Dr. Akagi's gaze was immediately drawn to the center of the room. There stood a prominent pedestal, with a block of some type of clear plastic mounted upon it. In the center of the plastic, something was visible. It was small, only about the size of a closed fist, and was distinctly fetal in appearance. Its flesh was an unvaried pale white tone. It possessed a single, vividly green eye which was of disproportionate size in comparison to the rest of the underdeveloped body. Though the eye was not focused on anything in particular, Dr. Akagi got the peculiar sensation that it was staring at her.

Dr. Akagi felt something cool against her palm, and suddenly realized that she had pressed her hand against the encasing block without consciously thinking about it. She didn't even remember walking across the room to the pedestal; the desire to touch the sealed object had come over her so suddenly and so powerfully that it had never even occurred to her to resist the urge. Abruptly conscious of her actions, Dr. Akagi abruptly drew her hand back from the block.

"The call of the White Mother is strong, is it not?" a woman's voice asked with thinly veiled amusement. "The members of the Harlaown Expedition, who encountered Her when She was fully formed, had not the slightest chance of resisting it."

It took a physical effort for Dr. Akagi to tear her eyes from the enrapturing block. When she did, she saw that Commander Testarossa and Vice-Commander Fuyutsuki were also in the room. Fuyutsuki was standing with his back pressed against the far wall, likely trying to stay as far from the central pedestal as possible in the hopes of keeping his head clear. The Commander stood somewhat closer to the center of the room; if being so close to the White Mother's alluring call was putting any kind of strain on her, she wasn't showing it.

Dr. Akagi managed, with some difficulty, to walk back away from the pedestal. It was only when she had once more reached the entrance to the room that she felt confident enough in her control to speak.

"Then that is... Adam?" she asked.

"Could it be mistaken for anything else?" the Commander asked. "Yes. This is the White Mother, the Progenitor from which all Angels were born. I had Her transferred here as soon as She was securely in my possession. It is important that such an alluring object be kept far from prying eyes. It has the potential to cause considerable disruption to NERV's operation."

"This room won't be far enough." Dr. Akagi said. "The people working up above will feel it... Perhaps not at first, but as Adam progresses in Her awakening, the strength of Her call will grow stronger. The MAGI will also be affected, as they incorporate Lilim tissue. And Lilith will almost certainly feel it. I don't think it's wise at all to have the White Mother in such close proximity to the Black Mother."

"This containment area is only temporary." the Commander said. "I will soon be transferring Her somewhere far more secure. But in the meantime... it is Adam's eventual awakening which I have called you here about. Please, educate me about the process."

Dr. Akagi took a moment to compose her thoughts in the face of the overpowering aura emanating from the White Mother.

"Current theory holds that Adam has been unconscious since First Impact several billion years ago." she said. "That is why no Angelic life forms have previously appeared on Earth. However, during Second Impact, Adam was exposed to Lilim tissue. That contact will almost certainly have begun the process of awakening Her. Of course, one must consider that Angelic beings operate on a far longer timescale than humans; for an Angel, the process of awakening takes years. And since the rejection reaction destroyed Her body and expended most of Her magic, that might lengthen the process even further."

"All information I have heard before." the Commander said. "What I wish to know is how long it will take Adam to regenerate Herself. Fifteen years have passed since Second Impact; fifteen years during which Lilith has shown a considerable degree of recovery. The White Mother has had an equal amount of time to recover, and yet remains little more than an embryo. Why?"

"Don't make the mistake of judging by appearance alone; an Angel's looks can be deceiving." Dr. Akagi said.

"Oh?" the Commander asked.

"Lilith it a being of flesh and blood, like us." Dr. Akagi said. "It takes her time to heal; she needs to grow flesh, produce blood, knit bones, generate organs, and carry out other such biological processes. There is a limit to how fast even the Black Mother can carry out such a regeneration; cells will only divide so fast. We are also constantly drawing Her blood for use by the MAGI —" and use by myself, Dr. Akagi's conscience reminded her "— which slows the process, as Lilith is forced to constantly produce new blood. The White Mother, however, is an entirely different type of organism. Angels' bodies aren't composed of flesh and blood. Apart from the crystalline Core which serves as the seat of their consciousness, they are made entirely of magic. An Angel doesn't need a long period of time to regenerate; it can call forth its magic and reassemble its damaged body in a moment so long as its Core remains intact. Adam's Core, of course, is not so."

"X-Ray imaging shows that Adam's Core is flawless." the Commander said. "Though, admittedly, far smaller than would be expected of such a powerful being."

"Not its original Core." Dr. Akagi said. "That would've been quite severely damaged during Second Impact. Most Angels would die of such damage; or even if they survived, they would be incapable of regenerating it. Adam, however, is the White Progenitor; She is a being of a higher order. From Her damaged old Core, she was able to produce the seed of a new Core and transfer Her consciousness to it."

"Like launching a lifeboat from a sinking ship." Fuyutsuki said, just to show that he was following along. Dr. Akagi noticed sweat beading on his forehead; maintaining his composure was taking a significant toll on him.

"In a manner of speaking." Dr. Akagi said. "This embryo is formed around that lifeboat, the seed of a new Core. It will eventually grow into a perfect replica of the old one, and Adam will be reborn."

"Remarkable." the Commander said. "But why has not She made any progress?"

"She most assuredly has; you just can't see it." Dr. Akagi said. "For the past fifteen years, Adam has been replenishing the magic power She lost during Second Impact. However, She cannot use that power when She is unconscious. The moment She wakes up, She will undoubtably use her magic to reconstruct her body in an instant. The process of the Core's regeneration I must admit I am less certain about, as such a process hasn't been observed in Angels, but if you'll permit me to speculate for a moment... The Core has already regrown to the limits of what Adam's small amount of remaining flesh will contain. Once She is able to construct a larger body for Herself, the Core will once again have room to grow, and will continue the process of returning to its original size."

"So Adam has already regained much of Her old power. The question is merely when She will awaken to make use of it." the Commander said. "Is that something you can measure? Something you can predict?"

"Measure, yes." Dr. Akagi said. "I'd say that the strength of Her call is a good indicator of how conscious She is. As She continues to awaken, it will grow more and more powerful. When She is awake, we will be able to feel it from anywhere on the Earth — much as the Angels can feel Lilith's call. But predicting how long the process will take is much more difficult. Probably by the end of the year; I can't be any more specific than that."

"Hmm. It would be quite a problem if She awoke before we were prepared... particularly in such close proximity to the Black Mother." the Commander said. "I think it would be wise to take measures to delay Her awakening until the situation is more stable."

"Delay... Her awakening..." Dr. Akagi finally realized what the Commander was driving at, and she felt her heart drop.

"By deliberately inflicting minor damage to Her Core." the Commander said. "It should be possible to incapacitate Her that way; if my understanding is correct, an Angel cannot function with a damaged Core."

"If any damage is done to Her Core, Adam will remain in Her fugue state until it repairs itself... like the twin Angels Israfel did." Dr. Akagi admitted.

"Well, I would hope you could keep Adam unconscious for rather longer than that." the Commander said. "But yes, that is the general idea. As with Lilith, we will deliberately damage Her to keep Her regeneration at a manageable rate. I trust you are capable of performing this operation."

The Commander did not phrase it as a question.

"It would be an incredibly delicate procedure!" Dr. Akagi objected. "An Angel's Core may look homogenous, but the structure is as intricate as the human brain. Damaging one spot might hardly impair Adam at all, while damaging the spot right next to that might kill Her!"

"Adam seems to be recovering handily from Second Impact; and with your prowess, I imagine you'll be a fair bit more precise in the damage you inflict." the Commander said.

The Commander really intended to do this, Dr. Akagi realized. She wouldn't be allowed to refuse. If she tried, the Commander would simply threaten to cut off her access to the blood of Lilith. And Dr. Akagi couldn't give that up yet; she'd been making preparations for the time when she'd no longer have access to the precious liquid, but she had been using it for so long that her dependence was severe. Dr. Akagi tried to think of any reasonable objections she might raise.

"I can't just do this with an ordinary scalpel and magnifying glass... I'll need special equipment..." Dr. Akagi said.

"Happily, there are SEELE laboratories with exactly the sort of equipment I believe you will require. And while I doubt the old men would sanction this operation, I long ago took steps to ensure that we would be able to gain access to it when we needed to. Shipments of the necessary devices should begin arriving before the end of the week." the Commander said.

Of course, Dr. Akagi thought grimly. The Commander had doubtless been planning this for a long time.

"Very well." Dr. Akagi said reluctantly. "I'll begin preparing my lab. I'd like to leave now, if you wouldn't mind... It's hard to concentrate this close to the White Mother."

"Of course. You are dismissed." the Commander said.

Dr. Akagi hurried from the room, imagining as she did so that Adam's unblinking green eye was staring after her.

* * *

"You've declared war on SEELE." Fuyutsuki said. "The old men will never forgive you for taking Adam. From now on, they'll be doing everything in their power to destroy you."

The two of them had left Adam's containment chamber and returned to Precia's office to speak. Precia might be utterly unflappable, but Fuyutsuki had great difficulty concentrating anywhere near the White Mother. It pained him to admit such to Precia — the Commander would doubtlessly regard it as a sign of weak mental fortitude — but he needed to be thinking clearly for this conversation.

"We always knew it could come to this." Precia said. "Assuming we had allowed Adam to fall into their hands, they would have gone to war with us to claim Lilith. My actions have merely hastened the inevitable conflict."

"Does the war breaking out early favor us or favor them?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"Hard to say." Precia mused. "A lot depends on SEELE's reaction. I suspect, however, that the overall shift in the balance of power is in our favor. SEELE wished to keep the Progenitors separate — if they had Adam safely in their custody, they could wait until the end of the war against the Angels before taking any action. Now that we possess both, we control the schedule. SEELE will be left scrambling to adjust."

Fuyutsuki frowned at this.

"Do you plan to begin immediately, before the rest of the Angels have even been defeated?"

"It is tempting." Precia said thoughtfully. "It is frustrating, having to delay when the instruments of my victory are already within my grasp. And acting immediately would deny SEELE any hope of being able to organize a response in time. However... this is a situation where caution seems advisable. It is not something that we will be able to try again if the first attempt fails. From what we have learned from the blood of Lilith, it appears that it would be inadvisable to proceed while there are still Angels active. They might object rather strenuously to what we have planned, it seems; possibly enough so to overcome their natural aversion to working together. If Lilith Herself believes we should hold off, perhaps it is best that we defer to Her judgement."

"Multiple Angels working together." Fuyutsuki said. "I hope to God that's something we never have to see."

"It is only an outside possibility." Precia said. "But why risk even that? If we have the patience to wait just a while longer, we can be assured that the Angels will continue behaving normally. When the last of them is gone, we can proceed without fear. The only obstacle in our path is the old fools at SEELE, and I think you will agree that they are much less of a threat than the Angels."

"Don't get too overconfident." Fuyutsuki warned. "SEELE has only taken your previous actions lying down because they thought you were no threat to their overall plan. Now that you've taken Adam from them, they'll realize the danger you pose and react accordingly."

"I am not concerned." Precia said. "I will triumph over this adversity, as I have over all others."

Their conversation was abruptly interrupted by the ringing of Fuyutsuki's cell phone.

"Are you certain?" he asked; then, "Very well, I'll inform the Commander immediately."

"Important news?" Precia asked.

"Possibly." Fuyutsuki. "The next Angel may have awakened."

"_May_ have... it has not been identified with certainty?" Precia asked.

"We've got no visual contact at all, but there have been unusual readings which the MAGI now believe with 87% confidence are being caused by an Angel. I'll have the MAGI send the data to your computer... can your hologram system display it?"

Precia sat behind her desk and pressed a few discretely mounted buttons. A hologram of a monolith shimmered into the air in front of her. However, unlike the featureless black monoliths of the SEELE Council, this one bore a map of Japan, the New Dead Sea, and the waters between them. A series of red spots appeared on the map, forming an apparent line starting in the New Dead Sea and extended towards Japan.

"The red marks indicate the locations of recorded seismic disturbances over the past few hours." Fuyutsuki said. "The first few might've been put down to natural causes, but the MAGI now believe they are most likely being caused by an Angel burrowing beneath the crust. The potential target has for now been tentatively designated _Sandalphon_."

"It must be burrowing at a significant depth to cause such tremors." Precia said.

"Estimates place it around 5 to 10 kilometers underground, and it doesn't seem to have any intention of surfacing." Fuyutsuki said. "The way it's moving, it could tunnel straight into Terminal Dogma without ever giving us a chance to intercept it. This poses a serious problem."

"A problem?" Precia asked. "To the contrary, Fuyutsuki, this is a wonderful opportunity."

"I fail to see your meaning." Fuyutsuki said.

"Over five kilometers underground... that would place it beyond the effective range of the Arc-En-Ciel, would it not?" Precia asked.

"Almost certainly." Fuyutsuki said. "The crater formed by the beam fired at Israfel was definitely less than a kilometer deep. It's possible that the weapon is capable of firing a sustained beam, in which case it would be able to burn down to the Angel's depth eventually; but if so, Sandalphon would certainly sense such a massive discharge of energy, and have plenty of time to move out of the way. I don't see any way the Arc-En-Ciel could be used against this target."

"Perfect." Precia said. "I could not have asked for better timing. You think that SEELE will move immediately to destroy me for the theft of Adam? Well here is proof that they still _need_ me. That little satellite they are so proud of cannot handle this Angel; only my Magical Girls can. Even with my betrayal made manifest, they dare not dispose of me now."

"And what's to stop them from offing you the moment Sandalphon is destroyed?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"Ah, but what about the next Angel?" Precia asked. "How are they to know whether or not it will also be immune to their toy? The Arc-En-Ciel is unparalleled in sheer power, yes, but it is inflexible. NERV will continue to be indispensable to them so long as the Angels continue to exist. They cannot eliminate us before then. When the final Angel is defeated, they will be free to strike... but so too will we be free to complete our plan."

"I think you'll find that it's the Magical Girls who are indispensable." Fuyutsuki said. "There is no particular reason for you to be leading them."

"But there is; namely, I have made it impossible for anyone to take my job." Precia said. "How would they remove me? Let them try telling me I'm fired; my hologram projector will suffer unfortunate technical difficulties, and any official letters they send will be lost in the mail. The only way they will take command of NERV from me is if they kill me. But I have taken very thorough precautions against that, you may be sure; no assassin could strike me down here, in the heart of my own kingdom. The only strategy that might have a chance is announcing to the public that I have betrayed the UN and then sending an army to retake NERV by force. Except... I don't think public opinion is too favorable towards the UN at the moment. Now that everyone knows who was responsible for Second Impact, they are not going to support turning over the heroic organization that's been dealing with the fallout of the incident to the very butchers who caused it. Nations would be forming a line to secede from the UN and declare war on it! In fact, you should get our Public Relations department working on a statement right now. Something along the lines of, _Having learned about the true origin of the terrible tragedy that was Second Impact, we can no longer in good conscience follow orders from the same institution which was responsible for the threat we are fighting. Henceforth, NERV will be an independent organization under the sole leadership of Commander Precia Testarossa. We will act not on the orders of traitors and murderers, but in the defense of the world; so that no such horrible calamity may ever come to pass again._ ...Pander to their anger at the UN, fans the flames of their patriotism, remind them who has been keeping them safe from the Angels, and bottom line get them thinking that NERV is the best thing to happen to the world since man first stole fire from the gods." Precia allowed herself a rare smile. "Precia Testarossa, the modern Prometheus. I like the sound of that."

"Very well." Fuyutsuki sighed. "I'll pass the message along right after I update Major Harlaown on the situation with the Angel."

"Major Harlaown?" Precia did not often sound surprised. "Has she not resigned? I never expected that she would _continue_ to work for us following the leak to the news."

"She called in this morning." Fuyutsuki said. "She said that she'd like a few days off unless there was an emergency — I believe Sandalphon qualifies — but that she had no intention of quitting her position."

"...Very well." Precia said after a short pause. "Inform Major Harlaown of the situation, then. But assign someone to keep an eye on her during the operation. I do not think that the Major would intentionally sabotage a mission for revenge... but I also did not think that she would continue working for us after recent events. Clearly I must reevaluate her."

"Understood, Commander." Fuyutsuki said.

* * *

"Come on in." Lindy said.

Fate stepped across the threshold of the apartment, pulling a piece of luggage behind her.

"Hello, Major." Fate said.

"Well, if you're going to be living here, I guess you can just call me Lindy from now on." Lindy said.

"Okay, then... Lindy." Fate said.

She set her luggage bag down in the center of the floor.

"That bag looks kind of small." Lindy said. "Are you sure you've got everything?"

"Yes." Fate said. "I do not have all that many personal possessions. I have heard that other girls my age like to collect material things such as clothing or jewelry, but I have never seen the appeal; and in any case, I spend so much time training that I have none left for recreational shopping."

"You know, you don't have to talk so formally all the time." Lindy said. "It's okay to use contractions."

"Mother has always stressed the importance of proper diction." Fate said. "She says sloppy speech is the sign of a sloppy mind... Uh, no offence, Major... I mean, Lindy..."

Fate's face colored as she tripped over her words.

"Your mother isn't the ultimate authority on everything, Fate." Lindy said. "In fact, _no offense_, most people would say she's a bit uptight. Professionalism on the job is one thing, but it's okay to be more laid back on your own time."

Fate was saved from having to respond by the arrival of Nanoha.

"Fate! You're here!" Nanoha exclaimed.

She pulled the startled girl into a hug.

"It is good to see you too, Nanoha." Fate said.

"C'mon, I'll show you our room." Nanoha said eagerly.

Lindy's apartment was rather large compared to typical urban residences. Unsurprisingly, not many people wanted to live in a city that drew Angels like a magnet. Many of those who did found it more convenient or more reassuring to live underground in the GeoFront full-time. As a result, there was quite a bit of prime real estate available at bargain prices, and Lindy had chosen a fairly nice apartment. It wasn't anything you could call _opulent_, but it did have plenty of room, so there wouldn't be any difficulty fitting another person in. It did, however, only have two bedrooms, so Fate would be rooming with Nanoha.

"Here it is." Nanoha said. "What do you think?"

"It is very..." Fate tried to find an appropriate word. "...cozy. My room at home is larger, but it is not nearly so comfortable. It is not so warmly decorated, and much of the space is empty, and at times it can feel rather..."

"Lonely?" Nanoha suggested.

"Yes. Lonely." Fate agreed.

"I think you'll like it a lot better here." Nanoha said. "Lindy and I will always be around, so you won't have to be alone any more."

"I really appreciate the sentiment, but you do not have to go through so much trouble for me." Fate said.

"Yes, I do." Nanoha said. "I couldn't call myself your friend otherwise."

Fate had been so lonely for so long that she'd managed to convince herself that it was normal, that her suffering was simply something that everyone had to endure. Now, upon finally receiving true affection from another, the years of repressed pain welled up in Fate's heart. Nanoha was right. People shouldn't have to live in isolation; their families should be there to support them. That wasn't a selfish imposition on their time or a sign of excessive neediness like Mother had so often chided her; it was basic human decency. Why was it that Nanoha and Lindy were willing to do so much for her, yet Mother rarely had time for her unless it was to punish her for some offense? For the first time in her life, Fate began to consider the possibility that it was Mother and not herself who was at fault.

The girls' eyes met, and Nanoha was startled to see that Fate's were welling up with tears. On an impulse Nanoha gently reached out and caught the first tear on her finger as it rolled down Fate's cheek. Fate blushed at the contact; she could not even remember the last time Mother had actually touched her skin-to-skin. In fact, she was surprised to find herself thinking, if Mother ever tried to make such a gesture, Fate probably would've instinctively flinched away from the contact. Even though her conscious mind still struggled with the concept, it had long been ingrained in her subconscious that her Mother was a source of pain rather than comfort. From Nanoha, however, such intimacy felt perfectly natural. Fate clasped Nanoha's hand within her own; and for a moment, a strange tension filled the air between the girls.

The moment was broken when Lindy stepped into the room, holding her cell phone.

"Time to go to work, girls." Lindy said. "The next Angel has appeared."

* * *

Signum, Shamal, Hayate, and Vita were already in the briefing room when Nanoha, Fate, and Lindy arrived; not surprising, given Shamal's ability to open portals. The girls had been chatting urgently among themselves, but abruptly feel silent when Lindy entered. Nanoha could guess what they'd been talking about: the news about Second Impact and the accusation that the UN — and by extension SEELE — had been behind it. To her credit, Lindy didn't let any of the emotions she must have been feeling show. She simply acted like she hadn't heard them and got down to business.

"The newest Angel is a bit of a problem." Lindy said. "It's gotten the bright idea to burrow beneath us. Seismography indicates that it is ten kilometers underground, and moving pretty fast for something that's traveling through solid rock."

"Damn. Hitting this one's going to be a bit of a problem." Vita muttered.

"I don't think Divine Buster could penetrate that deep into the ground, even if I had a way of aiming it." Nanoha said.

"I don't think even my magic could do that." Hayate said.

"And I can't open a portal into solid rock." Shamal said.

"Honestly, I don't see any realistic way of taking the fight to this Angel." Lindy said. "That's why we're going to have to lure it to us."

"How do you intend to do so?" Signum asked.

"You heard about the attack on the_ Makinami_, right?" Lindy said. "The Angel Gaghiel diverted away from NERV to pursue that ship."

"Right... because it sensed the magic of the Intelligent Devices." Hayate said. "We were taught that Angels are fiercely solitary beings. An active Angel will attack any other source of magic it encounters — since the Angels wake up one at a time, we've never seen two fight each other, but they definitely go after any Magical Girls or Intelligent Devices they sense..."

"Exactly." Lindy said. "I figure that with six Magical Girls working together, we should be able to generate a strong enough magical field to attract Sandalphon's attention."

Lindy turned around and pointed to a map on the briefing room wall.

"If the Angel continues on it's current course — and from what we've seen, they pretty much always travel in straight lines — it will pass almost direct underneath Mt. Azusa. That's where we'll ambush it."

"Is there anything in specific we have to do to provoke it?" Fate asked.

"Based on the Gaghiel incident, just your presence in its vicinity should be enough to make it head up to meet you." Lindy said. "However, just in case, I'd like all of you to fire magic attacks into the ground when the Angel gets near. I don't expect any of the attacks to actually reach the Angel, of course, but it'll probably be able to sense them. Based on Sachiel and Ramiel's attacks on the UN forces, it seems like Angels always respond violently when they detect something attacking them, even if the attack is too weak to actually harm them."

"Is there a backup plan if the Angel doesn't take the bait?" Signum asked.

"If this fails, Shamal can open a portal back to NERV." Lindy said. "The Angel has to show itself eventually; we'll fight it in our own basement if we have to. But since that would probably involve an inconvenient amount of property damage to the GeoFront, I'm hoping we can pull off Plan A."

"What's this Angel look like, anyway?" Vita asks.

"Unfortunately, we don't know." Lindy said. "It's too deep for us to get any kind of accurate image of it. We won't have any idea of what its capabilities are until it surfaces, so you'll have to be ready for anything."

"We won't let you down." Nanoha assured her.

* * *

The six Magical Girls floated in the air high above the slopes of Mt. Azusa; they didn't know exactly where the Angel would emerge and wanted a clear view of the entire area. The mountain looked deceptively peaceful, the only warning of the impending destruction being the distant wailing of the evacuation sirens. Each girl was surrounded by an aura of bright magical energy as they prepared various attacks.

"The Angel is passing under the volcano now." Lindy said through their earpieces. "Fire at will!"

A chorus of shouts filled the air as each girl yelled the name of her preferred attack. A raging cascade of offensive magic smashed into the foot of the volcano. There was a massive explosion as the attacks struck, sending a plume of smoke and rubble into the air. They'd blown a giant hole in the ground. It wouldn't reach nearly to depth of the burrowing Angel, but the fallout from such an incredible burst of magic would certainly seep deep into the earth, where the Angel would sense it...

"Did that get its attention?" Vita asked.

"I'd say so." Lindy said. "The ground-penetrating radar unit indicates that it's changing course. It's heading up, fast!"

Nanoha didn't need to be told that the Angel was coming for them. As Lindy was speaking, the ground had begun to tremble violently. An infernal red glow began to emanate from the hole created by their attack. Cracks spread out through the bulging ground around it, the same red light seeping through them, then the entire foot of the mountain exploded in a cloud of ash and lava. As a deluge of lava erupted from the growing fissure, Nanoha spotted something floating on top of it — vaguely manta-ray shaped, but with clawed arms. She couldn't get a very good look at it through the intense heat haze pouring off the lava flow, but she was certain it was the Angel Sandalphon.

"Take this!" Vita shouted. "Swallow Flier!"

She swung her hammer Graf Eisen and sent a ball of blazing orange magic streaking down towards the Angel. However, the sphere seemed to waver as it entered the intense aura of heat surrounding the Angel. It abruptly exploded before striking the Angel.

"I do not think it hit." Fate said, trying to get a clear look through the haze surrounding the bubbling lava.

"The heat might've made it explode early." Vita said. "I've never tried using my attack under these conditions before."

"Fire Dragon Flash!" Signum announced.

Blazing magic engulfed Laevatein. When Signum swung the sword, the magic expanded into a shaft of flame that sailed through the air down towards the Angel. However, the attack seemed to blend into the inferno already surrounding Sandalphon; if it had an effect, Nanoha couldn't see it.

"I do not think fire or explosive magic will be effective against this target." Signum said.

"Maybe we should try — look out!" Nanoha shouted.

Sandalphon screeched, and missiles of molten rock launched out of the lava flow surrounding the Angel like an artillery barrage. The projectiles left trails of brimstone smoke as they sailed towards the Magical Girls. Nanoha quickly focused her magic and launched a counterattack.

"Axel Shooter!"

The spheres of pink energy that blazed from her staff intercepted the missiles in mid-air, causing them to explode into clouds of ash and embers that rained back down towards the ever-growing lake of molten lava spreading across the ground below.

"Plasma Lancer!" Fate added.

She sent multiple shots of crackling yellow magic blazing down towards the Angel. Nanoha began building power for another attack, ready to take advantage of the wavering that Fate's assault would cause in the Angel's defensive Barrier. To her surprise, however, Sandalphon didn't raise its Barrier at all. Instead, the Angel submerged itself in the lake of lava. Fate's blasts pounded the surface of the lake, sending fountains of liquid rock into the air, but couldn't penetrate the dense material to reach the Angel lurking within.

"Can you open a portal to it?" Nanoha asked Shamal.

"I can't open a portal inside solid material like lava." Shamal said. "And I think heat will travel through my portals just like anything else — if I open a portal anywhere near the surface of that lava lake, the heat coming through will fry us."

Even high in the air as they were, the Magical Girls could feel the intense heat billowing up from the molten lava. Their Barrier Jackets were perfectly adequate protection at this distance, but close to the surface they'd probably burst into flame regardless of any magical protection they tried to use.

"I think I have an idea." Hayate said. "If this Angel likes fire so much, maybe it'll be vulnerable to the cold. There's a spell I can use to freeze it solid."

"I like the sound of that." Vita said.

"It's worth a try." Nanoha agreed.

"Begin casting. We will defend you." Fate said.

Hayate spread her hands, her book flipping open between them, and began to focus. A white magic circle inscribed itself under her feet, and the air around her began to crackle with power. Sandalphon, perhaps sensing the power buildup and realizing the danger of the impending attack, resurfaced on the lava lake and began launching more salvos of red-hot missiles.

"Axel Shooter!"

"Plasma Lancer!"

Nanoha and Fate unleashed a storm of pink and yellow energy bullets, blowing the incoming projectiles out of the air before they could get anyway close to Hayate. Seeing that its barrage was futile, the Angel ceased fire for a moment; then a single massive missile the size of a skyscraper launched itself out of the lava. Nanoha and Fate's small projectiles could only blast small craters into the surface of the enormous smoking rock, and there wasn't enough time to switch to Divine Buster before it would hit.

"Violet Lightning Flash!" Signum shouted.

She flew downwards, straight towards the enormous missile rocketing up towards them, and swung her flame-coated sword. It cleaved through the hot stone as easily as butter, splitting the missile directly down the center. The massive projectile crumbled as it split apart, turning into a rain of molten stone that fell back down upon the blazing landscape below.

A new roar of frustration rose up from the Angel, and it changed to a new strategy. Molten lava from the lake around it began spraying up like a firehose, an arc of liquid rock streaming through the air towards the Magical Girls. Shamal immediately ran a hand over the rings of Klarer Wind, and a portal opened in the air between the girls and the oncoming stream. The jet of molten stone vanished into the portal; the billowing cloud of steam that then erupted from its mouth suggested to Nanoha that Shamal was redirecting the lava somewhere out over the sea.

Hayate, finished with her incantation, opened her eyes. Four shining white cubes appeared in the air around her, and even from a distance Nanoha could feel the dreadful aura of cold radiating from them. With a final desperate roar, the Angel raised its clawed hands and a sphere of pure magic swelled between them. Sandalphon launched the blazing red orb directly towards Hayate. Nanoha and Fate both fired energy blasts at the incoming attack, but they splashed without effect against the Angel's far more powerful magic. The blazing sphere continued to race towards Hayate, its speed undiminished.

"Like I'd let you lay a hand on Hayate!" Vita shouted. "Gigantform! Deadly Punishment!"

An aura of orange magic surrounded Graf Eisen, and hammer suddenly began to expanded. Though the Device looked solid, it was actually a construct made of pure magic. By pouring all of her magic into it, Vita could enormously increase its size. When it finished growing, the head of the hammer was several times larger than her body. Vita roared as she swung the weapon to meet the incoming sphere of power. There was a tremendous impact; then the blazing orb was sent hurtling back down towards the Angel that had launched it. Sandalphon was finally forced to raise its Barrier, but it had made its own attack too powerful; the faint blue Barrier shattered under the explosive impact of the offensive magic, and the blast raised an enormous spray of lava from the lake. At that moment, Hayate unleashed her spell.

"Atem des Eises!" she shouted.

The four cubes of magic suddenly lost their shape, streaking like comets into the lake of lava. They burst as they impacted, unleashing waves of freezing magic. The liquid rock filling the burning lake abruptly hardened, frozen in an instant by Hayate's power. It let out a strange, keening moan as the lava stirred up by its reflected attack solidified around it, firmly immobilizing it.

"It won't be dodging this time." Vita said with satisfaction. "Hit it, Nanoha!"

Nanoha was already focusing magic into her staff. A brilliant pink aura surrounded her as she prepared to release the energy.

"Maximum power — absolute destruction!" Nanoha shouted. "Divine Buster Extension!"

An enormous beam of bright energy surged forth from Raising Heart's tip and blazed down towards the imprisoned Angel. She didn't know where in its body its Core was located, so she instead aimed for the frozen rock gripping the Angel. The power exploded beneath Sandalphon, catching its ray-like body like a sail and lifting the helpless Angel into the air.

"Shamal!" Nanoha said.

"Right!" Shamal said.

As the Angel began to fall back towards the ground, a portal suddenly opened between it and the crater below. The Angel fell through the gap in space and suddenly found itself falling through the sky high above the ground, gaining immense speed as it once again plummeted back down to earth. It tried to pull up a pillar of lava to catch itself; but Shamal had teleported it to the other side of the mountain, where nothing but cold, hard rock lay beneath it. Sandalphon hit the ground and shattered like porcelain, sending chunks of its body scattering over the landscape; in one of the pieces, a red crystal gleamed.

"I see the Core." Fate announced, swinging Bardiche to bear and channeling her magic through the weapon. "Plasma Smasher!"

Crackling magic exploded like lightning from Bardiche and roared to the ground below. There was an explosion, and the Angel Sandalphon perished in a shower of crystal shards.

"Mission complete." Lindy said. "Well done, girls."


	17. Revolutions And CounterRevolutions

**Chapter 17: Revolutions And Counter-Revolutions**

Nanoha took a few steps backwards and tensed her muscles. Then she ran forwards and jumped into the lake, landing in the sparkling blue water with a tiny splash.

"Ah! It's cold!" Nanoha shouted as the water's unexpected chill reached her.

"You can use your magic to keep warm." Shamal said. "You don't even have to transform to do it. Just focus on your Device, then imagine it heating up and warmth flowing from it into your body."

"Wow." Nanoha said, doing as the older Magical Girl directed and noticing an immediate effect. "That's a pretty neat trick."

"I been coming up with a lot of little tricks like this while experimenting with my magic." Shamal said. "You'd be surprised how many ways it can be used other than just shooting big lasers. Admittedly, that does seem the kind of magic most useful for fighting Angels; but you never know until you try, and occasionally you come up with something like my portals."

"Incidentally, you don't have to worry about Hayate boiling the pool; she seems to have mastered this trick without any of her usual problems." Vita said.

"Hey, my _spells_ can sometimes be a little difficult to control, but there's no reason for me to have a problem with a simple thing like this." Hayate said "Come over here; I'm gonna splash you!"

"You'll have to catch me first!" Vita taunted,

She dived under the water as Hayate began swimming towards her. The girls' antics made Shamal smile, though Signum seemed uninterested.

It was one of the rare days when all of the Magical Girls had free time together. Lindy hadn't scheduled any training, Nanoha and Fate didn't have any school, and Clyde was out of the city on some errand for SEELE. Nanoha had eagerly taken the opportunity to propose that the six of them go swimming. Though they had trained together and fought together, she pointed out, they had never really had a chance to hang out in an informal setting. The other girls agreed that it sounded like a good way to relax after the last battle; to get to know one another better socially; and above all, to have fun.

However, it seemed like the trip was proving only partially successful. While they were having fun together, Nanoha didn't really feel like they were becoming closer. There was something unspoken hanging over the gathering, forming an invisible wall between the two groups of girls. It was Fate, with her blunt manner of speech, who finally broke through that wall.

"What is your opinion on the news about the true cause of Second Impact?" Fate asked. "Since you worked with SEELE more closely than any of us, you may know things we do not."

The festive atmosphere instantly grew thick with tension as the question hung in the air, and the girls suddenly found themselves forming into ranks: the girls from SEELE staring down the girls from NERV.

"I thought Commander Testarossa said the UN was responsible, not SEELE." Nanoha said, trying to defuse matters.

"The UN is a puppet controlled by SEELE." Signum said bluntly. "Claiming that the UN caused Second Impact, as your Commander claims, is the same as claiming that the honorable Council ordered it so."

Signum had said "_your_ Commander", Nanoha noted in alarm. The choice of words made Nanoha's spirit sag. It was another sign of the gap that existed between the two groups of Magical Girls. Could a civil war actually be inevitable? Would she eventually be forced to fight these girls she wished to see as friends?

"I can't believe SEELE would do something so terrible." Hayate said. "SEELE saved me... saved us all. The four of us are orphans; Signum and Shamal's parents died in the Second Impact itself, and Vita's and mine died four or five years later from secondary effects of the event like wars, famine, and plagues. SEELE took us in. They gave us training, and education, and a chance to fight back against the Angels! And you want us to believe that they actually _caused_ the event! That instead of saving us, they were the ones responsible for _killing_ our parents...!"

Vita abruptly interposed herself between Nanoha and Hayate.

"Back off." Vita demanded. "Your beloved Commander makes one overblown declaration and you're ready to regard the only family we've ever had as villains based on her word? How does that make you any different from the people who are now vilifying Major Harlaown's father!"

Nanoha winced. She'd felt so bad for the Major when everyone started jumping to bad conclusions about her father; and now she'd done the same thing to someone else herself.

"I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions." she said. "Fate, I know your mother said that the UN caused Second Impact, but she wasn't necessarily right. We should give our friends the benefit of the doubt about things like this."

"Actually..." Shamal said, her head downcast, "...I'm not sure that Commander Precia is wrong about this."

"What?" Vita asked, caught flat-footed. This was apparently the first time Shamal had confessed her doubts to her friends.

"When I was at SEELE, before you joined up, I did sometimes... hear things." Shamal said hesitantly. "Mostly from that doctor who did our compatibility testing. What was his name, again? It sounded like an Italian food..."

"Dr. Jail Scaglietti." Signum provided.

"Never heard of him." Vita said.

"Well, that's not unexpected." Shamal said. "I don't think he was supposed to talk with us... the supervisors got upset every time they caught him at it, at any rate. Eventually they forbid him all contact with us, and by the time you and Hayate were recruited they had one of his assistants performing the compatibility tests in his place."

"The doctor seemed... unbalanced." Signum said. "I was somewhat surprised that such a clearly unstable individual was allowed to work for SEELE."

"He was probably one of those _brilliant but mad_ types you hear about." Vita said. "What'd he do for SEELE, anyway?"

"His main job was creating Intelligent Devices." Shamal said. "He also — at least in the beginning, before his privileges were revoked — would do compatibility tests on Signum and myself to get data for his work. He'd always ramble on about his work to anyone who would listen, and some of the things he said seemed strange."

Signum got a vacant look on her face as she thought back to her own conversations with doctor, revisiting his words in light of recent developments. A frown slowly began to creep onto her face.

"What!" Vita demanded. "What did he say!"

"It wasn't anything that made me suspicious at the time." Shamal said. "But in retrospect... He talked about how he'd designed the machinery to produce Intelligent Devices himself. It sounded like he'd spent a long time on their development. But that means he would've had to have started building them _before_ Second Impact. Why would he create such things unless he knew that the war with the Angels was coming?"

"Well, he could just be a fast worker..." Vita said, but there was a tinge of doubt in her voice.

"The doctor once told me that his laboratory survived Second Impact undamaged." Signum said. "It was dug deeply enough to be shielded from the shockwave, high enough in the mountains to escape the tsunamis, and so forth. I thought at the time that he was saying how a variety of traits allowed his lab to survive due to good fortune. However, in hindsight, he might've been saying that the lab's location was carefully chosen to have those traits so that it _would_ survive."

"Come on!" Vita said. "This is all just a bunch of vague stuff some sketchy scientist said. I can't believe you're making such a big deal over it. Are you trying to upset Hayate?"

"Um... actually..." Hayate said timidly from behind Vita. "I always thought it strange... The honored Chairman said he and his staff made the place into SEELE's new headquarters after Second Impact, right? Because Japan was no longer safe after Second Impact, with the wars that broke out? Except... it always seemed so organized. Growing up after Second Impact, I saw lots of buildings that had been converted to different purposes than the ones they'd originally been built for, and there were always weird things about them... design choices that reflected their origin rather than their current function. Like, I new that the medical clinic near my house was in a building that was originally a bakery, because of the huge smokestacks left over from the ovens. But the SEELE facility didn't seem to have been repurposed at all. It looked like it had been designed with its current use in mind. Why would a science facility be built like that... unless it was intended to serve as SEELE's headquarters all along?"

"You think..." Vita said. "You think the honorable Council... the people that helped us, that took us in... that they really...?"

"I wish I could think the best of them." Hayate said sadly. "But before my parents died, they told me... They told me that there were always two sides to any story. I usually see the positive side of things first; but because of that, I can sometimes be too trusting. Gullible. So they told me that whenever something seemed too good to be true, I should think about whether there's another way to interpret it. SEELE was really good to me while I was living there, but it just seemed too good to be true."

"Hayate..." Vita said.

"So I think we should speak to Clyde." Hayate said. "He'll know the truth. And I trust him."

"Clyde seemed like a decent guy." Nanoha admitted.

"And that settles that." Hayate said. "So let's not argue any more, please."

No one could really think of anything much to say after that.

* * *

Lindy spent the morning tackling the endless paperwork that accumulated like rust on the gears of NERV's bureaucracy. Since her promotion to Major, she'd been dealing with more and more of it. In some ways, the forms dealing with the minutiae of daily operation were worse than the ones related to the exceptional circumstances of Angel attacks; at least in those cases she had an excuse to shout, "There's no time for paperwork now, we need to prepare for battle!" It was with great relief that she glanced up at the clock above her desk and noticed it was time for a lunch break. She had just sat down in the Central Dogma cafeteria when Ritsuko Akagi approached her, carrying a tray of food of her own.

"Mind if I sit here?" Ritsuko asked.

"Go ahead." Lindy said.

Ritsuko sat across from the Major. The two of them weren't exactly close friends, but they shared a level of professional respect for one another.

"I just wanted to make sure you're doing okay." Ritsuko said. "I know it can't be easy for you, all the talk about Second Impact that's been going around."

"I guess I'm doing as well as can be expected, under the circumstances." Lindy said. "It's not just that everyone's saying bad things about my father; it wouldn't be the first time a good man's reputation fell victim to a smear job. It's the _betrayal_ that hurts most. The Commander made a promise to me, and then she went back on her word without a second thought. Like it didn't mean a thing to her. You can't imagine how worthless that makes me feel."

"I actually think I can." Ritsuko said. "To tell the truth, I've had a similar experience with the Commander. I remember how hard it was on me at the time, and I thought that telling you... letting you know that you aren't alone... might help you get through this."

"Are you okay talking about it?" Lindy asked. "I don't want to pry; I of all people know there are some things people would rather keep private."

"I feel fine telling you." Ritsuko assured her. " This happened a while ago; I've had a while to come to terms with it. And, as someone else who's had her trust betrayed by the Commander, I think you'll be able to empathize."

"Alright, then." Lindy said. "Tell me."

"Some years ago, I was in a romantic relationship with the Commander." Ritsuko confessed.

"But... Didn't she have a husband? And a daughter?" Lindy asked in surprise.

"And you'd think I would've noticed those hints." Ritsuko said ruefully. "But I was in love with her, so I found excuses to ignore them. Maybe she was deeply closeted. Maybe her relationship with her husband had been bad and she wanted to try with a woman this time. I ignored all the evidence and deluded myself into believing that she loved me the way that I loved her. ...But she didn't have any real feelings at all. She was _using_ me. She made me think she loved me — even went on dates with me, even had sex with me — and then she used our fake relationship as leverage to get me to do her favors. Just small things at first, then more and more dubious stuff. Stuff I'd never have done if it hadn't been the person I loved and trusted most giving the orders. Finally, it reached the point that even as blinded by love as I was, I couldn't ignore the fact that she was abusing my trust. And so I confronted her, and she told me without the slightest remorse: she had never actually felt a thing for me. She just thought sleeping with me was the easiest way to get me to do some of the things she needed done that I might otherwise voice moral objections to."

"Damn." Lindy said. "I'm so sorry, Ritsuko."

"It's in the past now." Ritsuko said. "And in my case, I was the only one who suffered as a result. I made a poor decision, and I paid the price. Our dispute was personal; she didn't publically malign my family, like she's done to your father."

"Still, to be _used_ that way." Lindy said. "Why on Earth did you keep working for the Commander after she did that to you?"

"The same reason you are, I suspect." Ritsuko said. "The Angels have to be stopped. NERV's the only organization that can do it. Whatever my feelings for the Commander, I'm not going to screw over the rest of the world just to spite her."

"Yeah." Lindy said, nodding slowly. "Even if it would feel cathartic to see the Commander get stepped on by an Angel, we can't just abandon the world to them. Humanity might contain some utter bitches, but there are also good people... people worth protecting."

"We can call the Commander to account for what she's done after we've finished saving the world." Ritsuko agreed.

"I'll drink to that." Lindy said. "Forget the paperwork; do you know anywhere around here I can get a decent beer?"

* * *

Lorenz Keel sat in his office, in the building that currently served as the headquarters of SEELE. For a long time, the Council had been based in the GeoFront; however, having foreknowledge of the Angelic attacks which would commence following Second Impact, it was decided that it would be wise to move the leadership out of the line of fire. They had handed the NERV facilities to Precia Testarossa — one of the few decisions in Keel's life which he'd since come to regret, though she had seemed entirely trustworthy at the time — and moved somewhere that would be untouched by the cataclysm of Second Impact and the subsequent war. Advances in telecommunications software had subsequently made a centralized command center entirely unnecessary; the Council members could hold meetings in hologram form even if its members were scattered to the four corners of the world. Still, despite all the advantages decentralization offered, SEELE could not embrace it entirely. Certain aspects of their work were far too delicate to risk outsourcing — the labs where the Intelligent Devices were produced, and the holding cell that they had intended for Adam, could not be put anywhere that other organizations might stick their noses. SEELE needed a fortress, an inviolable sanctum to hold their deepest, darkest secrets. That was the purpose of the base where Keel now resided: _Der Riese_.

The complex held a special place in Keel's memories. It was here, as a youth, that he had first come into the employ of SEELE. As part of the alliance between Japan and Germany during the war, the then-Chairman of SEELE had turned over a substantial quantity of the blood of Lilith, hoping that the Nazi scientists would help them make progress accessing the wealth of information it tantalizingly withheld. It was, objectively speaking, a poor decision. SEELE should remain apart from the public stage of politics, so that whichever government won or lost, SEELE would endure. It was unfortunate that SEELE's home country was on the losing side of the war, but the hidden GeoFront would endure; exposing the organization's existence to outsiders, however, imperiled the secrecy that had allowed them to survive for so long. The Chairman responsible for such a reckless move had subsequently committed seppuku at the Council's unsubtle encouragement. Incompetence was not tolerated for long at SEELE. For the young Lorenz Keel, however, the ill-fated Chairman's mistake had been a glorious opportunity; for he was one of the Party members given the privilege of working on _Die Glock_.

_Die Glock_ was one of many secret projects that aimed to create _wunderwaffen_, "wonder weapons"; miracles of advanced technology that would bring turn the tide of the war and bring the Allied powers to their knees in one magnificent blow. Keel, despite his youth, was an incredible prodigy in the field of science; and so he was one of the first to realize that _Die Glock_ was doomed. The blood of Lilith held enormous potential, as any fool could tell at a glance, but the technology of the time simply wasn't sufficient to unlock it. The field of computer science was still in its infancy; it would be decades before it became possible to conceive of the MAGI, and decades more before the great marvels could be produced and finally provide an efficient means of deciphering the information encoded within the Black Mother's blood. At the time... it was like having the world's most advanced bullet before the invention of the gun that could fire it. Useless.

Realizing the situation, the young Keel had fallen back on his first instinct: to survive, at any cost. That was something Keel was very, very good at. He used his scientific genius to ingratiate himself to the representatives of SEELE who provided the blood, and arranged a position as liaison to the Council. This gave him good reason to make many trips to Japan, and he made certain to be on one such trip when the advancing Red Army captured _Der Riese_, destroyed the work done there, and killed the scientists involved. SEELE was happy to shelter Keel in the GeoFront; they recognized him as someone who possessed the genius necessary to make real progress on their work once the war ended and materials became more plentiful. By the time of the Nuremberg Trials, SEELE had taken steps to cover up its brief collaboration with the Nazis by making certain that everyone with direct knowledge of _Die Glock_ was either safely hidden away in the GeoFront or else dead; Keel made certain he was useful enough to be worth including in the former group rather than the latter. SEELE's secret remained safe, and Keel went to work on his new job.

Keel succeeded beyond all expectation. Promotion followed promotion until at last he was given the ultimate honor of admission to the august Council itself. There he continued to distinguish himself, to the point that when his predecessor as Chairman died, the vote to elect Keel to the position was unanimous. By that time, however, Keel was facing a peril that it seemed he could not outrun: that of old age. The wealth and secret technological knowledge of SEELE gave Council members a higher life expectancy than the general population, but even they could not conquer death entirely. More and more, Keel began to rely on cybernetic implants to keep himself alive. A failing heart or kidney could be replaced with a superior mechanical equivalent easily enough, but Keel knew it could not continue forever. He wished for nothing less than true immortality. It was a wish he knew was within SEELE's power to fulfill. For the very event that had sparked the formation of the organization was the revelation received by a Lilith-worshiper who, while ritually drinking Her blood, had by chance happened on Her knowledge of what might follow should She obtain the forbidden union with Adam. That was the goal SEELE had been founded to achieve: the Human Instrumentality Project. And if Keel could bring it to fruition while he still lived, he could attain life everlasting. And so Keel had pushed forwards with their plans faster than any Chairman before him, had finally uncovered Adam and triggered Second Impact, and now stood on the threshold of attaining what he sought most. There was only one obstacle left in his path, and that was the traitor Precia Testarossa.

Precia was a problem. She had been appointed Commander of Anti-Angel Operations because she was the most competent, most intelligent, and most ruthless person available. At the time, the Council had thought she was loyal to the goals of SEELE; and that if she succumbed to temptation and attempted to misuse the power that SEELE granted her, she could be kept in line through threats against her daughter. Now, however, Precia was openly acting against their interests, and it seemed she had no actual love for her daughter for them to exploit. Precia was out of control; and as someone who had been a high-ranking member of SEELE herself, she knew their secrets — including the most sensitive details of Human Instrumentality. Precia had to be stopped before she could exploit that information to ruin the careful plans that had been so long in the working.

Keel felt confident that it was a goal they could still achieve. With her typical arrogance, Precia had probably already written off the Council. Perhaps she thought that now that she possessed both Lilith and Adam, her position was unassailable. However, the Commander didn't know _all_ their secrets.

The holographic projectors in Keel's office activated, and a ring of imposing black monoliths appeared in the room around him. Each bore in stark white lettering the words SEELE followed by the number of the Council member speaking through it. To each of them, Keel himself would appear as the monolith marked SEELE 01. To his left floated SEELE 02 through 04; to his right floated SEELE 05 through 07. Then, after a few moments, a new monolith appeared directly across the room from Keel; it's letters proclaimed it to be ENVOY 08.

"You have news for us, Envoy?" Keel asked.

There was a brief pause, then the ENVOY 08 monolith shifted into the image of a blue-haired man.

"It's alright if I use my real appearance isn't it?" Clyde asked. "After all, we're all friends here."

"You are not a friend, Envoy." Keel warned. "You are a subordinate, and you will keep that in mind when addressing this honorable Council."

"Ah, but I think you should rather _want_ to be my friend." Clyde said. "After all, there are such interesting things I can tell you. You only had a working relationship with Commander Testarossa, and some information I've recently uncovered suggests that isn't turning out so well for you. Want to hear what the lady's been up to lately?"

"Enough of your insolent blathering!" SEELE 02 cut in. "If you have information, then deliver it! If not, you will regret wasting our time!"

"Of course. No insolence intended, honored sirs and/or madames." Clyde said. "Though Precia has been admirably persistent in preventing me from accessing any restricted areas of the base, I can confirm without a doubt that Adam has been secreted away in the facility."

He beamed proudly at Keel, though of course he saw only a blank monolith which betrayed none of the Chairman's true feelings.

"Is that it?" SEELE 07 asked contemptuously. "We rather gathered that the bitch Precia was responsible for the White Mother's theft, considering it was military forces under NERV's command which raided the _Cymbeline_."

"Oh, that's not the good part." Clyde said. "I was poking around the esteemed Dr. Akagi's laboratory yesterday, and what did I see but some rather special SEELE equipment which I'm quite certain never entered mass production. Well, I thought, it seems a rather risky move to keep the White Mother so close to the Black Mother. A smart woman like Precia wouldn't do that unless she was certain she had some means of keeping Adam under control. And that's when I realized what she was planning."

Clyde paused for dramatic effect, only to be cut off by SEELE 04.

"You need not say anything further." SEELE 04 said languidly. "You may have worked hard to acquire this information, but your effort has been wasted. You have uncovered nothing that our other informant has not already revealed to us."

"Your _other_ informant?" Clyde asked. "Don't tell me you've been running another agent behind my back! And here I thought we were in a committed relationship."

"Of course you are not our only spy." SEELE 05 said. "We want information on _all_ of NERV's activities, not just the meager bits of information Madam Testarossa is willing to divulge to an accredited representative."

"Hey, I expected that you'd be buying gossip from the janitorial staff." Clyde said. "But I was under the impression that I was your only highly placed agent, the only one with real access."

"Envious, Envoy?" SEELE 02 taunted. "For your information, JUDAS 00 has proved a much more reliable source than _you_. It turns out it's much easier for someone who wasn't identified as a double-agent at first glance to gain access to secret information."

"Hey, you can't fault me on that one." Clyde said. "You honorable fellows are the ones who told me to wave my SEELE credentials around as soon as I arrived. I was just doing my job."

"Do not presume to know the true purpose of your assignment." Keel said. "We sent you not because we expected you to uncover any actual information of note, but so that you could act as a smokescreen for our true agent. You are so obviously a spy that the Commander's eye will be drawn to you rather than the true traitor; any information leaked to us by our Judas will likewise be attributed to your clumsy infiltration."

"I get it, I get it; Judas is your favorite child." Clyde said. "But have you ever considered that I could be more than just a decoy?"

"What do you imagine that you can do that our other agent cannot?" Keel asked.

"Well, from what I hear, the SEELE's reputation has taken a bit of a beating lately, what with the release of information about Second Impact." Clyde said. "Of course, most people think that the UN was responsible, but there are some people who know who really pulls the strings. The four girls that I've been looking after, for instance. Though they've been raised to be loyal to SEELE, they've found the implication that the disaster was not the work of an Angel as they'd always been told but rather the very organization they've been working for... a little upsetting. Oh, you and I might know that it's a necessary means to an end, but they are still children, full of naive sensibilities. This is the sort of thing that might shake their faith in the Council and cause them to turn their loyalty to Precia in the mistaken belief she's more virtuous. You guys don't want that happening, right?"

"We have already written off the girls as assets." Keel said. "We knew when we first sent them to the Commander that she might decide they were spies and kill them on the spot. The loss of their loyalty or their lives will be no blow to our plans."

"But it would be even better if they _did_ remain loyal, right?" Clyde pressed. "At the very least, Precia will have a bit more difficulty using them against you."

"And you think you can convince them to remain loyal to us?" Keel asked.

"I'm their guardian, the most trusted adult in their lives. They'll believe what I say over anything Precia tells them." Clyde said.

"The Commander does not tolerate disloyalty among her subordinates." Keel said. "If she cannot win their loyalty through lies, she will secure it through fear or extortion."

"And wouldn't it be so very convenient for you if some of Precia's subordinates were chafing at her despotic rule, harboring the kind of resentment that could lead them to betray her at a critical moment?" Clyde suggested. "I haven't just been skulking around labs and rifling through files marked _Top Secret_. I've been keeping my ear to the ground, getting a feel for the mood around NERV. I've talked to people ranging from the lowest-paid janitor to Major Harlaown, and heard them all voice grievances against Precia. You say that she tolerates no disloyalty; and so, disloyalty is no longer openly voiced, but it still exists as a smoldering resentment that grows stronger with each new action she takes. Precia rules through fear because it's the only way she know how. She can't conceive of a compassionate relationship, only one founded on cruelty, domination and submission. But while that might be effective in the short term, it inevitably leads to resentment, rebellion, and revolution. Precia has already sown the seeds of her own destruction; give me the chance, and I'll reap them for you."

Quiet mutters of ascent rose from the six monoliths. Precia turning the Magical Girls they had granted her against them had always been one of the Council's greatest concerns; if Clyde could ensure their continued loyalty, it could only be a good thing. And there was a certain pleasing symmetry about the idea that Precia, who had betrayed their trust, would herself fall to betrayal. Keel tapped a few keys under his desk, instructing the holographic relay system to switch his image from the SEELE 01 monolith to a real-time projection of his true body.

"Very well... Clyde." Keel said with a smile. "Perhaps we can be friends after all."


	18. The Premonition Of God

**Chapter 18: The Premonition Of God**

Precia Testarossa reclined on one of the beds in Dr. Akagi's lab. Dr. Akagi carefully inserted a syringe into a vein on the Commander's arm and injected her with its contents.

"How long until I am ready to undergo the bonding process?" Precia asked.

"It takes a couple hours for the treatment to take effect." Dr. Akagi said. "I'll perform more tests this afternoon to see if your compatibility level has risen high enough."

Precia was obsessed with control. She wanted power over everyone. And she could not stand the idea of someone else possessing a power she did not. Magic was another type of power; a power that only young girls could wield. Precia was far too old to successfully bond with an Intelligent Device. So she had initiated the development of the compatibility-boost serum. Of course, she would never try a new and unproven serum on herself; that was what Signum and Shamal were for. Precia has observed them until she was confident in the serum's safety and efficacy. The future of the world would be controlled by Magical Girls; now, it was time for her to become one of them.

SEELE wouldn't be giving her any more Intelligent Devices, not now that she had revealed her treacherous intentions. However, this was not an obstacle in the slightest. Precia prided herself on her ability to plan ahead, and she had been working on this plan for years. She already had everything she needed.

Precia's thoughts were interrupted by a flicker in the room's lighting. The lights flickered again, then abruptly went out. The lab was plunged into total darkness

"Dr. Akagi." Precia said with deliberate calmness. "We appear to have lost power."

"It could be a malfunction in the MAGI." Dr. Akagi said.

All MAGI systems were perpetually teetering on the brink of insanity. It was not hard to see why: as lumps of cloned human brain tissue crammed into metal boxes, lacking any form of body, all they were capable of doing was thinking. And, lacking any sensory organs, the only things they had to think about were the data their operators provided them. The worst thing a MAGI could endure was boredom; a lack of sufficient stimuli could very quickly send it mad from sensory deprivation. However, the MAGI system at NERV had always been one of the most stable. The constant circulation of fresh blood of Lilith through the system kept CASPER, BALTHASAR, and MELCHIOR saturated with new and interesting data that occupied their vast intellects. While the systems operators had to deal with more than their fair share of glitches, there had never been any _serious_ problem with the system before.

"The backup generators should have restored power by now." Precia said. "All of our safety systems feature triple redundancies. They cannot all have failed at the same time by mere coincidence. I am forced to conclude that we are the victim of sabotage."

Dr. Akagi didn't think the Commander was being paranoid. The Commander had been paranoid when she'd taken over NERV and insisted that all of these excessive security measures be put into place. If something bad was happening despite the Commander's numerous precautionary measures, there could be little doubt that it was due to enemy action.

"Alright, hang on, I think I have a flashlight here somewhere." Dr. Akagi said.

After a few muffled thumps, a bright beam dispelled the darkness. Dr. Akagi offered the flashlight to Precia, but the Commander demurred.

"I believe you can make better use of that in the present situation." Precia said. "Go find out what has been broken and fix it. As fast as possible, doctor."

"Yes, ma'am." Dr. Akagi said.

Precia reclined back on the bed as the doctor hurried out of the room. So there was a SEELE agent in NERV. Other than that fool Clyde, of course; if security had actually been incompetent enough to let him anywhere near the power generators, she'd have them all summarily executed. No, more likely this was treason by one of her own people. And when she found out who, she would make certain they regretted it.

* * *

Lindy and Clyde sat together in one of Central Dogma's cafeteria. Though Lindy had initially looked forward to her old friend's assignment to NERV, believing it a chance for the two of them to reconnect, they hadn't actually had as much time together as Lindy had expected. A large part of the problem was the issue relating to Lindy's father and Second Impact. Based on the information uncovered by the Commander, it was due to the machinations of SEELE that her father died, the world was devastated, and the war with the Angels had begun. Not that Lindy entirely trusted the Commander's word; after all, in the very process of revealing the information, the Commander had broken one of her oldest and most important promises to Lindy. As a high-ranking member of SEELE, Clyde probably knew the full truth; but he was also probably expected to toe the party line on the matter. Though Lindy wished she could believe that Clyde would tell her the truth if she asked, she wasn't certain — it had been a long time since they'd last seen each other, and Clyde had risen so very far in the SEELE hierarchy since then. If Clyde lied to her, putting his job over her friendship, it would destroy their relationship. It only complicated matters further that Lindy knew Clyde to be a skillful liar, enough so that there was a high probability she wouldn't even be able to tell for certain whether or not he was lying. So Lindy never asked, and their conversations tended towards small talk that skirted around the issue, and on the whole there was a certain amount of tension in their interactions.

"...Since the girls are now good enough that we've cut down on their training sessions, I've lately been doing nothing but paperwork." Lindy was saying. "I don't know what things are like at your job, but around here it seems you have to sign a stack of forms in triplicate to order more toilet paper. When the property damage claims come in after an Angel attack, well, I think cutting down forests for all those forms must be doing more damage to the environment than the Angels themselves. You'd think most of the bureaucratic busywork could be done electronically — it's not like we're at a lack for computing power, what with the MAGI under our feet — but just try telling that to..."

"You're ranting again, Lindy." Clyde said politely.

"...You're right. Sorry." Lindy buried her face in her hands. "It's been too long since I've had a vacation. And unless the next few Angels abruptly develop a habit of announcing their attacks a few weeks ahead of time, it'll probably quite a while before I have a chance to take one."

"I think we've spent too many of our recent meeting talking about work." Clyde said. "I think we've pretty much worn out that topic. I'd much rather discuss more personal matters. "

"And just what do you mean by that?" Lindy asked.

"I'm wondering how you're getting along with Nanoha and Fate." Clyde said. "Taking care of a child is a large responsibility, and you're now the legal guardian for two."

"Aren't you taking care of four girls yourself?" Lindy asked him.

"Only on paper." Clyde said. "In practice, Signum and Shamal look after Vita and Hayate. I get the sense that that's how things worked for them at SEELE, too. Since they're all orphans, they've become each others' family. I thought looking after Nanoha and Fate might be more difficult."

"Nanoha and Fate haven't been a burden to me at all." Lindy said. "They aren't just ordinary girls. They've gone into battle against the Angels. They know how to look after themselves."

"True, but entirely beside the point." Clyde said. "Some people have the knack for parenting, and some don't. Consider Testarossa, for example. An excellent Commander, but a terrible mother. Oh yes, I know why Fate's staying with you rather than her mother — rumors have a way of reaching my ears. Comes with being a representative of the Council. But to get back on topic, are you comfortable playing the role of a parent?"

"...Yes." Lindy said, after a moment of consideration. "I've spent a lot of my life living alone. I like being close to other people. And I like looking after them, taking care of them, being able to help them when they're in need. Doing the job I do, working for NERV, it's easy to lose sight of what really matters. For the longest time, I only fought the Angels out of a sense of personal responsibility, because of my father's role in their awakening. I was driven by guilt and a desire for revenge. But now, I'm fighting for something concrete. I'm fighting to protect these girls, and to ensure their future. And going home to see their smiling faces reminds me that, no matter what hard decisions I have to make... and no matter what painful things happen... it's worth it."

And with the mention of Lindy's father, a tension seemed to drain out of the air, like a bomb had been defused. The subject was no longer taboo, and would no longer hang between them like the embodiment of the growing rift between the two organizations to which they professed their loyalty. This didn't seem the proper place or time to delve into the heart of the matter, however, so Clyde kept the conversation on its original course.

"I knew it." he said with a relaxed smile. "From the moment we first met, I could tell that you would someday make a great mother."

"Don't go overboard." Lindy said. "Nanoha's only going to be staying until the end of the year; then she'll be going back to her real parents."

"I wasn't necessarily just talking about Nanoha." Clyde said. "You could become a mother to children of your own."

"I'm not against raising a real family... if I ever find the right man." Lindy said coyly.

"And what kind of man would the right man be?" Clyde asked.

"Oh, I'm not really sure..." Lindy said, avoiding eye contact.

"My, my, you seem to be blushing." Clyde observed. "Could it be that you already have one man in particular in mind? A man you have long had a crush on, yet have never summoned the courage to openly confess to?"

"What about you, Mr. We're-all-friends-here Clyde?" Lindy asked, trying to seize the offensive. "A smooth-talking hot young Commodore, traveling the world on secret missions as an accredited representative of SEELE... you probably have women queuing up to throw themselves at your feet each time you arrive in a city, and leave a trail of broken hearts behind you when you depart."

"Alas, it is not so!" Clyde bemoaned, making overly extravagant gestures of woe with his arms. "No one wants to cozy up with a representative of SEELE — that bastard's obviously one of the old men's spies, they think. Nor does SEELE encourage high-level members like myself to pursue relationships — that cute librarian who winked when I walked past might actually be an agent for the Opposition, attempting to seduce me to gain access to SEELE secrets."

"Wait, 'Opposition'? _What_ Opposition?" Lindy asked.

"It's part of SEELE's paranoid security measures for carrying out operations." Clyde said. "We are directed to always assume that an Opposition exists and that the Opposition is already two steps ahead of us; so when we undertake the mission, we have to be _three_ steps ahead."

"Seems like overkill to me." Lindy said.

"Ninety percent of the time, yes... but the other ten percent, when someone really is plotting against you, it can save your life." Clyde let out a sigh. "But it completely kills a SEELE agent's social life. Romance is out of the question. So during my years of service to SEELE, I have been sustained only by the thought of a woman — a woman I was once attracted to, but had held back from confessing to because of silly worries about rank — a woman who I wished I could someday meet again and properly woo."

"...Who are you talking about?" Lindy asked in a whisper.

"Who do you think?" Clyde said, taking one of her hands in his own.

It was at that moment that the power failed. The lights flickered off, plunging the cafeteria into total darkness.

"Well." Clyde said, somewhat embarassedly. "That was dramatic timing. Do things like this often happen at NERV?"

"We have redundancies." Lindy mumbled, her mind still on Clyde's confession. "Lights should be back up in a moment."

A moment passed, during which time the lights did not come back on.

"...Okay, there might actually be a serious problem." Lindy said.

"And just when we were finally getting somewhere, too." Clyde said. "I guess we'll have to continue this conversation later. Right now, it's time to put our business hats on."

"Right." Lindy said resignedly. "I'll be holding you to that, mind. Use some of your undoubtably impressive paycheck to make a reservation at a nice restaurant; I've always wanted to be wined and dined. For the moment, we should try and get in contact with the Commander — no, on second thought, with the power out there's not much she'd be able to do, either. What would really be best is to get into contact with the Magical Girls. If there's a threat to NERV, they're the only ones who can handle it with the base in this condition."

"Well, why don't you call Nanoha?" Clyde asked.

"The phone system is bound to be down with everything else." Lindy said.

"Well, sure, but a social young girl like Nanoha is certain to carry a cell." Clyde said.

"Clyde, for someone so smart, you sure can be dense at times." Lindy said. "We're kilometers underground. You expect to get a signal down here?"

"Hey, I've seen people using cell phones in NERV!" Clyde said. "I figured some of your engineers used a portion of the generous budget you've been allotted to build some sort of ingenious system to get coverage down here."

"If you mean the kind of ingenious system that _requires a lot of power to operate_, then yes, we have one of those." Lindy said.

"Oh." Clyde looked momentarily flummoxed. "Right, then."

"Not so suave now, eh?" Lindy said. "In any case, we can't just wander around randomly hoping to stumble over the girls. With the size of this place, the power would probably be back before we found them anyway. I guess the second best thing for us to do is head for the command deck. Maybe the techs there will be able to tell us what the problem is."

"Alright then, it's decided." Clyde said. "So... you're a lot more familiar with the layout of the cafeteria than me. Any idea where the door is?"

The dark cafeteria was soon filled with the distinctive sound of clattering and cursing that accompanies the stubbing of toes against tables and chairs.

* * *

"Hey... who turned out the lights?" Nanoha asked.

A moment later, Shamal used her magic to generate a soft green glow that allowed the girls to see. They were in one of the lower levels of the NERV complex, far from the areas they usually saw. Their little detour had started with Shamal wondering whether NERV's labs were anything like Dr. Scaglietti's laboratory at SEELE. This question had piqued Nanoha's own curiosity; if Signum or Shamal recognized any of the equipment, it could be an indication that NERV was gearing up to produce its own Intelligent Devices, in preparation for a conflict with SEELE. Nanoha had offered to show them Dr. Akagi's lab, only to find it locked — apparently some important experiment that couldn't be disturbed was taking place. Not one to give up easily, she then decided to show them some of the other labs on the lower levels. However, having never been there before, the group had gotten lost; and now, to top things off, the power had gone out.

"A power outage?" Hayate said. "I don't recall there ever being one of those at SEELE."

"It is the first time we have had one here." Fate said.

"Well, there goes our plan to pull up a map at the next computer terminal." Vita said.

"I can open us a portal to the surface." Shamal suggested.

"No, it's fine." Nanoha said. "In fact, this is a good opportunity for us."

"An opportunity?" Shamal asked.

"To explore!" Nanoha said.

"Explore what?" Fate asked.

"Explore NERV!" Nanoha said. "I mean, this is an area that none of us have ever been in before, right? So who knows what we might find if we look around. I mean, take this door — do you have any idea what's behind it?"

"It's labeled 'cleaning supplies'" Fate said.

"Well, sure, it's _labeled_ that." Nanoha said. "But isn't that exactly the sort of nondescript title you'd put on the door to a secret laboratory, to prevent nosy people from investigating?"

Nanoha was starting to realize just how little of NERV she'd seen. Her mind was alight with possibilities. Just what might be hidden, in this massive complex beneath the surface of the Earth? She wasn't sure exactly what she expected to find, but she was certain there was something to be found if she looked — wasn't it practically _required_ for the secret underground headquarters of a mysterious government organization to have hidden passages and rooms full of astonishing discoveries?

Fate opened the door. A mop fell out.

"Maybe not behind that _exact_ door, but there's bound to be at least _something_, _somewhere_... right?" Nanoha asked.

"I don't know why, but... for some reason, I'm getting the feeling that Nanoha is right." Hayate said. "I feel like there's something here waiting to be found."

"I guess I am kind of in the mood to look around." Vita said.

Signum seemed to hesitate for a moment, then gave a nod. "I would like to look around as well."

"I suppose there's no harm; it's not like there's anything else we can do while the power is out." Shamal said. "And you never know; there might really be something secret hidden nearby."

There was in fact something secret hidden nearby, although it was so securely stored that the girls never stood a chance of getting close to it. It was the White Mother, Adam. Despite the damage done to Her Core to keep Her from awakening, She was still emitting Her siren call, that irresistible allure that drew Lilim to Her as surely as Lilith's own siren song drew the Angels to NERV. The call was not something that the NERV scientists could inhibit, despite all of their attempts to restrain the powerful beings, because it was something inherent to the very nature of the Progenitors. Magical Girls were less receptive to the White Mother's call, due to the magic granted to them by their own Intelligent Devices; but they could still feel it. In getting lost on the lower levels, the girls had wandered in range of Adam's influence and been hit with a strong subconscious impulse: there is something _here_, something _hidden_, something _important_.

And so they about walking around and opening doors at random, never realizing how close they were to the prison of the Mother of all Angels.

* * *

The command deck of NERV was illuminated by a number of electric lanterns. Sometimes, power had to be shut down to certain sections of NERV for maintenance work; during those periods, the workers used these electric lanterns for light. Someone had gotten the idea to appropriate them for use during the current blackout. There still wasn't anything they could actually _do_ about the situation, but at least they were no longer bumping into things.

"I want a situation report." Lindy demanded as she strode onto the command deck.

"Major!" Maya said. "All power all throughout the facility is down."

"The MAGI?" Lindy asked.

"They don't seem to be the source of the problem." Makoto said. "All readings were normal right up until the lights went out."

"Then you're saying... what? That _all_ the generators _and_ backups just happened to break at the same time?" Lindy demanded.

"I know it doesn't seem likely, but process of elimination says that the generators are where the problem is." Shigeru said. "Do you think someone forgot to pay the maintenance staff their bonuses?"

"Cut the jokes, this is serious." Lindy said. "With the power out, we're blind and helpless — sitting ducks for any other trouble that might be heading our way. Our first priority should be getting back in contact with the surface."

"All the landlines are out." Makoto said. "We have cellphones and radios, but the signals can't penetrate the GeoFront without the help of the relay stations... which don't have power."

"Then we'll just have to send someone up to make contact manually." Lindy said.

"I pity the poor sap who gets _that_ job." Shigeru said. "God knows how many times they're going to get sent scurrying all the way up and back down to relay messages."

"Well, you can pity yourself, because I'm assigning you three the job." Lindy said. "Get up to the city and find out what's going on out there."

"What! Why us?" Makoto said.

"You're computer technicians. There's not much for you to do around here with the computers down." Lindy said. "Look, I'll reimburse you for the gas money later. Get a move on it!"

"Since when did you become such a harsh taskmaster?" Clyde said, chuckling as the three technicians scurried from the room.

"It's your fault for promoting me." Lindy said. "The power must be going to my head. If I ever make Lt. Colonel, I'll probably have them doing my laundry for me."

* * *

Heading to the surface was a bit of a commute at the best of times. From Central Dogma, it was a 3 km horizontal distance to the edge of the dome and then a 3 km vertical distance to the surface. However, with the power out, the lifts that would carry the car straight up the distance weren't functional. The three computer technicians would have to take one of the spiral ramps that slowly and circuitously wound its way up the surface. Makoto hoped that the Major hadn't been joking about the gas money; the distance really added up.

"I can't believe the Major made us her errand-boys." Makoto complained. "I thought I'd be above this kind of scutwork when I made First Lieutenant."

"Ha, I wish." Shigeru said. "The other day, Old Man Fuyutsuki walked in on me practicing guitar. He said if I had time to play, I had time to recalibrate the holographic projectors — _all_ of them. Don't we have janitors for this sort of thing?"

"Last time I offered to help Dr. Akagi with the MAGI's programming, she had me spend all night defragmenting the memory." Maya chipped in.

"Yeah, but you only do what Dr. Akagi tells you because you have a crush on her." Shigeru said.

"W-what makes you say that?" Maya said in surprise.

"_Everyone_ knows it." Makoto said.

"You always call her "sempai" when you speak to her." Shigeru said.

"You take your lunch breaks at the same time as hers." Makoto said.

"When you don't have any work of you own, you hang around her lab and offer to help with whatever she's working on." Shigeru said.

"Whenever you talk about her, you blush." Makoto said.

"I- I don't blush!" Maya protested.

"You're blushing right now." Makoto pointed out.

"Have you confessed to her yet?" Shigeru asked. "Dr. Akagi isn't exactly in the closet herself, if the rumors are anything to go by."

"Well..." Maya said hesitantly. "I did try telling her how I felt, but she didn't seem receptive. It made me wonder if maybe she didn't like other women after all."

"More likely she still hasn't gotten over being burned in her last relationship." Shigeru said.

"I think you should keep trying." Makoto said supportively. "I've always thought Dr. Akagi looks lonely: even when she's off the clock, she spends most of her time alone in her lab. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure when the last time she left the GeoFront was. She isn't even living with her cats anymore; I heard she gave them to a relative to take care of. That kind of lifestyle can't be healthy. Being in a relationship again might do her some good."

"I agree completely." Shigeru said. "If she starts getting some, she might mellow out a bit. Just don't break her heart again, or she's bound to take it out on us."

"I can't believe you guys!" Maya said angrily.

"Kidding, we're just kidding." Makoto reassured her.

"Mostly," Shigeru couldn't resist adding.

"Shut up and drive." Makoto advised.

* * *

"Huh." Nanoha said. "I didn't think the restricted sections of NERV would be so... boring."

Since starting their exploration, the girls had found nothing of interest. Most of the rooms they had entered were merely storage rooms, containing boxes of supplies and spare parts. Furthermore, as they'd moved onwards from their starting point, the vague feeling that there was something hidden nearby calling out to them had faded.

"I think we can just about call this a bust." Vita said. "Maybe we should just head to the surface and wait there until the power comes back."

"Alright." Nanoha said resignedly. "Let's just look in this one last room and then we'll be done."

Nanoha pulled open the door in front of him and Shamal cast a magical light inside, illuminating stacks of boxes.

"Aaand... it's another storage room." Vita said. "Whoop-de-doo."

"It was a fun idea, but I guess NERV isn't like the secret bases in the movies." Hayate said.

"I'll open us a portal back." Shamal said.

"Wait." Fate said.

She was staring intently at one of the boxes, which was half-open. She walked forward and pulled the top of the box completely open. Then, slowly, almost reverentially, she pulled a stuffed animal out of the box. Somewhat old and worn, it was shaped like a red-furred wolf.

"This is mine." Fate said. "I called her... it... Arf. I would sleep with it every night, before we moved to the GeoFront."

Fate dug deeper into the box, pulling out item after item.

"All of this stuff is mine." Fate said. "Here's the photo that used to sit on the nightstand by my bed..."

Fate raised a framed photo. It showed Fate, her mother, and a man that Nanoha did not recognize having a picnic on a sunny day. Precia was smiling warmly, a stark contrast to the stony expression she seemed to wear whenever Nanoha saw her. _Is this what the Precia was like before becoming Commander of NERV?_, Nanoha wondered.

"Here's the award I got for perfect attendance at school, before Mother started having tutors teach me at home... Here's my favorite dress... And this necklace — I remember now — this was the last Christmas present my father gave me before he died..."

"If these things are so important to you, why are they all down here?" Vita asked quietly. "Shouldn't they be in your room?"

"When we moved from our old home to the GeoFront..." Fate's eyes were dull, her voice distant. "Mother told me that she hadn't brought any of my old things. She said that I wouldn't need them anymore, now that I had a new purpose as a Magical Girl. I missed it a lot, at first... but eventually, I stopped thinking about it... since I thought it was gone forever..."

Fate's eyes were moist, and Nanoha realized that the girl was struggling not to cry.

"Why, Mother?" Fate said softly to herself. "Why did you take it all away?"

"Fate..." Nanoha said pityingly.

Never before had Fate seemed so vulnerable as she seemed now. Even when Nanoha had first met her, badly injured from her fight with Sachiel, Fate had radiated a quiet determination. Now, however, faced with proof of her mother's betrayal, it seemed like her emotional barriers had finally broken, the sadness that she'd walled up inside for so long pouring forth as tears. Nanoha felt an inexpressible longing towards Fate. She wanted to heal this broken girl, to wipe away her tears and make her smile. She wanted to embrace Fate in her arms and tell her that everything was going to be alright. She wanted to caress Fate's smooth skin and feel the touch of her soft lips — no, that wasn't right. Why had that image popped into her mind? She had never really thought much about... intimacy... before. Nanoha shook her head to clear her thoughts, then gently laid one of her hands on Fate's arm.

"It'll be alright, Fate." Nanoha said. "We live with Lindy now, remember? She's been really good to us. I'm sure she won't mind if you move these things into our room. No matter what else happens, Lindy and I will be there for you."

Fate looked into Nanoha's eyes, and Nanoha felt a sudden warmth spread through her body.

"I believe you." Fate said, and Nanoha found that simple affirmation of faith more moving than anything else she could have said.

* * *

After a long drive, Maya, Makoto, and Shigeru finally reached the surface. Their car emerged from a tunnel and moved onto the deserted streets of Tokyo-3. The absence of any other traffic was explained by the loud wailing sound echoing through the city.

"That sounds like the evacuation siren." Maya said. "But it doesn't look like the buildings have retracted."

"They can't." Shigeru said. "The actual mechanisms for lowering them into the GeoFront get their power from NERV, not the city supply."

"Well, why would— oh." Maya groaned. "Let me guess. When it was being built, it was assumed that NERV's power supply, sheltered in the GeoFront, would be much less likely to fail than the exposed power lines of the city."

"Hey, that's irony for you." Shigeru said. "Most reliable physical law in the universe."

"I think there's an evacuation shelter around here." Makoto said, checking the street signs. "We should find someone there who knows what's going on."

It took Makoto a few tries to find the shelter, but they made it there without getting entirely lost along the way. Once inside, they quickly identified a man in a military uniform who was trying to keep the civilians calm as the man in charge.

"We're from NERV. What's the situation?" Makoto asked.

"What's the situation!" the man roared. "We've been trying to get in touch with you for hours! None of our communications are getting through."

"We're having a few technical difficulties — nothing serious." Shigeru said. "What's happened, why is the evacuation alarm sounding?"

"I'll tell you what's happening!" the man said. "There's an Angel on its way! It's gotta be nearly here by now! And if you don't retract the buildings soon, we're all going to be sitting ducks when it attacks!"

"An Angel!" Maya said.

"Damn! Talk about your bad timing." Shigeru said.

"Well!" the soldier asked semi-hysterically. "What are you going to do about it!"

"We need to get a message back down to the GeoFront." Makoto said.

"How? All the lines of communication are down, and it'd take way too long to drive all the way back." Maya said. "On top of that, we don't even know where in the GeoFront the Magical Girls are to tell them an Angel is coming."

"Look, one of the Magical Girls can teleport, right?" Makoto said. "So she could get up to the surface instantly if she only knew something was wrong. We don't even have to communicate specifically that it's an Angel; it just has to be something to make her curious enough to pop up here for a look. When she hears the evacuation siren, she'll figure out it's an Angel attack, and it'll only take her a second to bring the rest of the Magical Girls up here too."

"The GeoFront was excavated to _shelter_ NERV from Angel attacks." Maya said. "What could we do up here that could catch their attention all the way down there?"

Shigeru snapped his fingers and turned back to the military officer.

"You!" he said. "You're in contact with your superiors, right? Give me your radio."

"Did you think of something?" Makoto asked as the soldier brought out his radio set.

"Yeah. This'll get their attention." Shigeru said.

He began speaking into the radio.

"General? This is a direct order from NERV command. We need you to drop an N-2 mine immediately."

"What?" the staticky voice came through the set. "Those haven't worked on the Angels before—"

"Don't drop it on the Angel." Shigeru said. "Drop it as close to the city as you safely can. No, don't argue. I'll take full responsibility. Get on it now, before that Angel has us all for dinner!"

"An N-2 mine!" Maya said. "Are you serious!"

"It's the only thing I could think of that'd be felt all the way down in the GeoFront." Shigeru said. "I know it's kind of extreme, but what else can we do?"

"I think perhaps we should move a little deeper into the shelter." Makoto said nervously.

"Seconded." Maya said.

The three technicians made their way to a back corner of the emergency shelter and braced themselves for the world's loudest distress call.

* * *

Nanoha still had her hand on Fate's arm when the world trembled. A deep shudder ran though through NERV, shaking the foundations of the base.

"What the hell was that!" Vita said.

"NERV is under attack." Fate said, pulling away from Nanoha abruptly. "We need to get to the surface immediately."

"I'll open a portal." Shamal said. "Everyone, transform."

The room filled with multicolored light as each Magical Girl underwent her transformation. When they were all clothed in their Barrier Jackets, Shamal opened a portal and the girls flew through it into the skies above Tokyo-3. From this high vantage point, they could see the enormous cloud of smoke rising from the spot where the N-2 mine had been detonated: far enough from the city to prevent the shockwave from doing any serious structural damage, though close enough to shatter every window in sight. And they could also see the alien thing striding across the landscape, steadily making its way towards the outskirts of the city.

"An Angel!" Shamal shouted in surprise.

With its low-slung body and long, bent legs, the Angel Matarael resembled one of the insects that skates across the surface of a pond. However, set into its black skin were numerous hideous eyes, each of which constantly wept a thick, caustic fluid. It left a smoldering channel in its wake as it strode ponderously towards the city. However, despite the Angel's monstrous appearance, Nanoha didn't get quite the same feeling from is she had from her previous foes.

"Is it just me, or does this Angel feel weaker than the past few?" Nanoha asked.

The girls could sense the magic emanating from the Angel's body, but only barely. If Sandalphon had been a blazing torch of magical energy, Matarael was more like a soggy match.

"Definitely the runt of the litter." Vita opined. "If it weren't for the damn blackout, we could've trounced this thing before it got anywhere close to Tokyo-3."

"I could probably take it down with a single spell." Hayate said.

"Better not." Shamal said. "It's gotten awfully close to the city, and your magic tends to be rather... large-scale."

"I don't think any large-scale spells will be necessary in this case." Signum said.

She raised her Laevatein, the bright red flames of her magic already running along the blade's edge.

"Fire Dragon Flash!" Signum shouted as she swung the blade.

A lance of fire leapt from the sword and flew through the air towards the unsuspecting Angel. Its Barrier snapped up at the last moment, intercepting the pillar of fire just before it struck. Signum's magic spread across the Angel's glowing blue barrier like flaming oil over a pool of water; then the Barrier shattered under the burning onslaught, turning into a shower of blue sparks that intermingled with the last embers of the attack as they rained down on the startled Angel.

"Axel Shooter!"

"Plasma Lancer!"

Nanoha and Fate were quick to take advantage of the breach in the Angel's defenses. A hail of pink and yellow bullets blazed through the air, blasting apart the Angel's legs at the joints. Matarael shrieked as its legs gave out, causing its body to crash to the ground. The Angel didn't appear to have any method of attack other than its acidic secretions; at least, none with enough range to attack the flying Magical Girls. It could only writhe impotently on the ground as it tried to regenerate its limbs. Nanoha thought the thrashing Angel looked almost pitiful.

"Gigantform! Deadly Punishment!"

Vita clearly had no sympathy for the Angel. She plummeted towards it wielding Graf Eisen, a corona of orange magic crackling around the hammer as it grew to enormous size. She brought it down with terrific force, pulverizing the front third of the crippled Angel. Matarael's Core must have been located somewhere in that portion of its body for, although it twitched a few moments longer, the remnants of the body then grew still and began to melt into a sparkling blue slush. It took Vita, who had already been pulling her hammer back for a second strike, a few moments to realize that the Angel was already done for; after blinking a few times in confusion, she shrunk Graf Eisen back to its normal size and flew back up to rejoin the other Magical Girls.

"That... was surprisingly easy." Nanoha said.

"It really didn't stand a chance, did it?" Shamal observed.

"I guess not all Angels are created equal." Vita said.

"There has been a surprising amount of diversity in the opponents we have faced." Fate said. "Each Angel appears to have a unique form and abilities, with no relation to one another save for their magic."

"I've always thought of them like animals." Hayate said. "The way they can't share territory, respect each others' dominance, attack other sources of magic on instinct... it's less like facing an invading army than a wild menagerie."

"It really makes you wonder why the Angels are attacking Earth." Nanoha said. "I mean, if you were launching an invasion force, you'd want well-disciplined soldiers that can work together as a team, not wild animals that can only attack one at a time."

"The way I understand it, no new Angels are coming to Earth." Shamal said. "We have so many satellites and telescopes and things that we'd detect them for sure, right? It's only the Angels that are already on Earth that are waking up after Second Impact, and there's no telling how long they've been here."

"Still makes me wonder why they came here in the first place." Nanoha said with a shrug. "We really don't understand the Angels at all, do we?"

"We do not need to understand. Only to win." Signum said.

"You don't think it matters why they attack?" Nanoha asked.

"The Angels threaten to destroy humanity. It does not matter to me whether this is out of intelligent malice or mere animal instinct. Either way, I will stand against them." Signum said.

"Of course I agree we have to stop them. We have to protect everyone." Nanoha said. "It's just... I think this is the first time I've actually felt sorry for an Angel."

"Eh. The more of them are weaklings, the better, as far as I'm concerned." Vita said.

"From a tactical perspective, I have to agree. But emotionally..." Nanoha hesitated. "I've always had a tendency to get into fights. Whenever I saw another kid at school getting bullied, I always stepped in. I guess I've always had something of a hero complex. But since I'm just a kid, I never had the strength to seriously hurt anybody in a fight. But now... when I fight the Angels, I fight to kill. There's really no other choice, because they're monsters; but even so, I'm afraid that I'm getting used to fighting to kill. And while NERV is predicting that the war with the Angels will be over by the end of the year, the magic that I've gained will stay with me forever. Fighting this Angel is the first time I've used magic against something with no way to fight back. And it made me really just how incredibly destructive magic can be. We don't usually notice it when fighting against the Angels because they're stronger than us one-on-one; but when they're gone, there'll be nothing else on the planet capable of fighting back against us. So I don't want to lose my conscience, to get comfortable with killing defenseless opponents... because I'm afraid that if I start, there'll be nothing capable of stopping me."

Clyde expected the war against the Angels to be followed by a war between humans, to determine who would control the incredible power of the Magical Girls. What could she do, should such a thing come to pass? She couldn't imagine doing nothing, letting innocents die when she had the ability to fight for them and keep them same. However, she shuddered to visualize the results of unleashing Raising Heart's magic against humans. With the type of attacks she was capable of using, she could level a city as effectively as an N-2 mine. More effectively, even; an N-2 mine destroys itself in the process, while a Magical Girl remains — to hunt down any survivors, or else to move on to the next city and raze it as well.

_The public think of us as the saviors of the world,_ Nanoha thought to herself bitterly. _How long after the war ends will it be before they start thinking of us as weapons of mass destruction?_

Fate laid a comforting hand on Nanoha's shoulder, and Nanoha realized that her dark thoughts had subconsciously brought a grimace to her face.

"Please don't worry, Nanoha." Fate said. "If there's one thing that I know, it's that you are a good person. You've been kind to me in a way no one else has. I have started to realize that my mother isn't as perfect of a person as I have always believed, because you have shown me what true goodness is. I don't believe that you could ever hurt someone needlessly. I sincerely believe that, even if things do go bad, even if there is a war, you won't use your magic to do wrong. Because you don't fight to destroy — you fight to protect."

"Fate..." Nanoha said.

"Hey, don't forget us." Vita said. "If you're ever in danger of going bad, we'll be there to slap some sense into you."

"That's right." Hayate said. "Because we're friends. And friends have an obligation to help each other out if they ever get in trouble."

"Thanks, everyone." Nanoha said. "That means a lot to me."

"Now, we should head back and let everyone know that everything's okay." Hayate said.

"Oh, right." Shamal said. "No one in the GeoFront knows what's been happening up here. They must be really worried after that explosion."

Shamal opened a green-rimmed portal in the air, and the Magical Girls passed through it to bear back news of their battle and victory.

* * *

Power to the GeoFront had been restored, but Precia Testarossa felt not the slightest pleasure in response to this positive news. She would not be satisfied until she learned who had caused this power outage, how, and most importantly why. Her anger over the incident was so intense that, even with her masterful skill at hiding her emotions, she still radiated a palpable aura of fury. It would not do for her subordinates to see her agitated, so she retreated to her office under the pretense of having to report the incident to SEELE. Ha! As if the old men didn't already know! Precia was quite certain that they were the only ones who could have struck at the GeoFront, the very heart of NERV's power. But what did they stand to gain from this stunt?

The simplest conclusion was that the blackout was deliberately timed to coincide with Matarael's attack to weaken their defenses against the Angel. However, that simply made no sense. The old men didn't want an Angel to come into contact with Lilith any more than she did; a Third Impact would ruin everybody's plans. SEELE wouldn't risk that. Not that the power outage had significantly hindered their defensive capability in any case — even in the worst-case scenario, if they hadn't become aware of its presence until it had actually breached the ceiling of the GeoFront, the Magical Girls would have easily dispatched it before it could have made any significant progress towards Terminal Dogma. If the old men had for some reason gone completely mad and wanted the Angel to wipe out humanity, they'd have used their precious Arc-En-Ciel to wipe NERV off the map rather than just turning off the lights for a while.

No, the Angel's appearance during the blackout had to have been mere coincidence. Just another mindless monster demonstrating a poor sense of timing. The real purpose of the sabotage was something else, something she couldn't see yet.

Precia's ruminations were eventually disturbed by the entrance of Dr. Akagi.

"You have completed your analysis of the sabotage?" Precia asked.

"The target was the MAGI." Dr. Akagi said.

" I thought the MAGI were unharmed by the power outage." Precia said.

Past experiments had shown that even a brief interruption of the power supplying a MAGI unit could have disastrous consequences. If the organic brains didn't die from the failure of their life-support systems, they were driven irretrievably insane from sensory deprivation when the flow of Lilith's blood ceased. This had been taken into account during the construction of NERV's MAGI system. Each of the brains' casings housed an uninterruptible power supply that switched on the instant external power was lost, keeping the life support and pumps on. The status of the MAGI was the first thing that Precia had ordered checked when power returned, and to all appearances the safety measures had worked perfectly.

"The MAGI were physically unharmed, yes." Dr. Akagi said. "However, their programming was changed. While the power was off, it was impossible to access the MAGI from any external terminal. However, there are maintenance terminals built into the shells themselves... so the MAGI can be worked on during power outages. Someone in NERV used one of those terminals to access the MAGI's coding while we were locked out of the system."

"What did they change?" Precia asked, her voice like ice.

"The master override codes." Dr. Akagi said miserably. "They can take control of the system from us at any time now. The MAGI are still accepting our input at the moment, but we can't change the codes back without knowing what the new ones are."

"I see." Precia said. "The old men think to take control of the MAGI away from me. They have gone too far this time. I am going to make them regret this."

"Your orders, Commander?" Dr. Akagi asked.

"There is nothing you can do at the moment." Precia said. "Of course, after I find the traitor who perpetrated this sabotage and _extract_ the new master override codes from them, I will require you to change them back again and upgrade the system so that this cannot happen again."

"...Yes, Commander." Dr. Akagi said. "Of course."

"Dismissed." Precia said.

Dr. Akagi hurried out of the Commander's office. Precia leaned forwards, resting her elbows on her desk, and steepled her hands. What thoughts were churning behind her dark eyes, no one could say; but they were likely very unpleasant thoughts indeed.


	19. The Ingenuity Of God

**Chapter 19: The Ingenuity Of God**

At the bottom of the New Dead Sea, the next Angel awakened. Its Core pulsed with magic, and rubbery flesh began to form around the glowing crystal. As the Angel grew in size, it rose from the sea floor and began to ascend. By the time it broke the surface, the Angel was the size of a battleship and still growing. Despite its great bulk, its magic carried it gently into the air; it rose into the sky like a bizarre parade float. Most Angels took the most direct route to NERV possible, but this one had more patience. It continued to rise into the sky, growing ever larger as it disappeared into the clouds. By the time it had reached its full size, it had entered a low Earth orbit.

The completed body of the Angel Sahaquiel presented a frontal surface area of nearly three square kilometers. The center of the Angel's body was dish-shaped and dominated by an enormous cyclopean eye which stared unblinkingly down at the planet below. Extending from the center of the Angel's body were two smaller projections, like fixed wings. Numerous smaller, feather-like appendages ringed its central body and wings. At last, having far removed itself from any ground-based threats, Sahaquiel began propelling itself in an arc that would take it over NERV, where the Black Mother awaited it.

As it moved, a small portion of its body detached, emerging from the pupil of the Angel's eye. It floated beneath the Angel for a moment, caught in a synchronous orbit; then the Angel's magic imposed an impulse that sent the spherical blob hurtling like a cannonball at the planet far below. Composed of highly concentrated offensive magic, the projectile exploded with the force of an N-2 mine upon impact.

This first bomb landed harmlessly in the ocean. It is not so easy a task to hit anything in particular on the surface with an object dropped from orbit, and Sahaquiel had only just woken up after many millions of years of slumber. However, its leisurely path towards NERV would give it plenty of time to practice. The Angel adjusted its aim and dropped another projectile. And, slowly but surely, its orbit took it towards the sky above Japan.

* * *

At the same time Sahaquiel was rising from the ocean, Nanoha was walking into Lindy's office at NERV. She noted that the Major's desk, typically cluttered with paperwork, had acquired a new paperweight: an elegant vase, containing a dozen red roses. Lindy paused from filling out a form to look up at Nanoha.

"What is it?" Lindy asked. "Was there a problem at school?"

"No, I just didn't feel like going today." Nanoha said, then quickly added: "Um, that's okay right? Fate always takes very good notes, and she said she'd get my assignment for me..."

"It's fine. Heaven knows I played hooky plenty of times in my day. Just keep your grades up and don't make a habit of it, okay?" Lindy said. "Anyway, is there something I can do for you."

"Well, I wanted to talk to you... if you're not too busy..." Nanoha said.

"What, with this?" Lindy gestured at the mess of papers covering her desk. "Ha! I'll welcome any break from this endless administrivia. But more than that, I'll always be there for you if you need me."

"Right." Nanoha said, relieved. "Those flowers. Did Clyde give them to you?"

"Yeah." Lindy said. "We're officially dating now."

"I'm glad." Nanoha said. "It wasn't fair, the way your jobs were keeping you apart. I could tell you liked him the first time you saw him. If it's not too personal a question, I'd like to know... how did you first know you were in love with Clyde?"

"Oh dear. You have a crush on someone, don't you?" Lindy said.

"I'm not sure." Nanoha said uncomfortably. "Lately, I've been experiencing... strange feelings. Emotions that I've never had before. And I'm not certain what they mean."

"Ah." Lindy said. "Well, I suppose it's only to be expected. You're undergoing puberty; it's the time in a girls life when she first begins experiencing romantic feelings. Did they talk about this at all in your sex ed classes?"

"They mostly focused on the, um, physical mechanics, not the emotional parts." Nanoha said. "I think this is normally something I'd talk to my mother about, but it's so personal that just writing a letter wouldn't be the same... And since you've become like a second mother to me, I thought I could come to you."

"I'm honored that you think so highly of me, but I'm not sure how much of a help I can be." Lindy said. "My own childhood wasn't exactly normal — I fell into a deep depression after the death of my parents in Second Impact, and wasn't really in any condition to start dating when I reached the usual age for that sort of thing. I guess in a way I'm still only just catching up — my relationship with Clyde is the first romantic relationship I've had."

"I see." Nanoha said. "Sorry. I didn't think of that."

"If it helps at all... To answer your original question, I didn't realize my feelings for Clyde right away." Lindy said. "We started off as colleagues, working together for SEELE — this was before he started being rapidly promoted, when we both had the same rank. We became friends, and then... more than friends. Even then, I didn't realize right away that I was in love with him. It wasn't until after we were parted and I tried to start dating other people that I realized that I didn't feel the same way about any of them as I did about Clyde. People rarely fall completely in love at first sight like Romeo and Juliet. You have to really get to know someone before you can understand whether they're right for you. So I guess my advice to you would have to be... if there's someone you think you like, just try being friends with them. If there really is a romantic attraction between you, you'll be able to tell because it'll feel different from your other friendships. That's really the only way to know what love feels like: it's different from everything else you've felt that _isn't_ love. That might not be very poetic, but it's the best advice I can give."

"That's more than enough." Nanoha said. "Thank you so much for taking the time to help me sort out my emotional issues."

"I'll be there for you any time you need me." Lindy assured her. "If you think of me as a second mother, then... is it alright if I think of you as an honorary daughter?"

"You really are a good mother, Lindy." Nanoha said. "I'm fine with being your honorary daughter, at least until I move back to my family — or until Clyde gives you a real child of your own."

Nanoha gave Lindy a wink which caused the woman to flush bright red.

"We're still only _dating_, it's not like we're _engaged_... I mean, I _would_ like to marry Clyde, but proposing now would be a little hasty — we're still in the middle of a war..." Lindy

"Do you really want to marry Clyde, to have children with him?" Nanoha asked.

"Yes. Yes, I do." Lindy said firmly.

"Then don't worry about the war. Because I promise you: as a Magical Girl, I will use my power to make the world safe for your children." Nanoha proclaimed.

"Dummy, it's supposed to be the other way around." Lindy said. "As an adult, I'm responsible for looking after children like you. But thanks for the sentiment."

"Thanks for talking to me." Nanoha said. "I feel a lot better now."

* * *

Fuyutsuki entered Precia's office. It was dark, as usual; only the Commander, sitting behind her desk, was illuminated. She motioned for Fuyutsuki to approach her.

"Ah, professor. So good to see you." Precia said. "I was hoping to speak with you."

"The next Angel has appeared." Fuyutsuki informed her. "It has entered orbit and seems to be preparing for a long-range bombardment of NERV."

"We can discuss that in a moment." Precia said. "First, there is something I would like you to see."

The Commander raised her hands and held them slightly apart, fingers outstretched. Then, reaching into herself and drawing upon the Linker Core that now burned hotly in her chest, she unleashed her magic. A web of purple lightning bolts crackled between her fingers, a miniature thunderstorm contained within her hands.

"Impressive." Fuyutsuki allowed.

"Not really." Precia said. "I am capable of much, much more than that minor light show. When I gain complete mastery over my new powers, my abilities will far surpass those of any other Magical Girl. However, I do not yet have enough experience to use my magic effectively. And I would like to be discreet in my practice; I would rather not openly advertise my new powers."

"I'll see if I can arrange a few 'business trips' for you." Fuyutsuki said. "Would you like to hear about the Angel now?"

"There is no need to concern me with the details." Precia said. "Inform Major Harlaown and have her begin planning our defense. That is her job, is it not?"

"Very well, Commander." Fuyutsuki said. "But will you at least come to the command center? It is expected of you, given your job."

"I suppose it is." Precia said. "The threat of the Angels is nothing, compared to the threat posed by SEELE... but appearances must be kept up."

"You believe that?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"Yes." Precia said. "The Angels are simple, mindless things. They live for only a single purpose: one that is easily understood, and thus easily thwarted. SEELE, however... the old men are cunning bastards. Even I cannot predict how they will strike next. Already they have infiltrated an agent who took out our power supply, an agent who still remains unidentified despite my best efforts. I am confident in our ability to defeat the remaining Angels — once I come into my full magical power, I will destroy them with my own hands if necessary. Defeating the old men, seizing the reigns of the future from their grasp and bringing our own vision to pass — that will be the true challenge."

"As you say." Fuyutsuki said. "But since the danger from SEELE remains subtle and unseen, while the Angel Sahaquiel is poised to begin bombardment of Tokyo-3 within the next couple of hours..."

"Yes, yes, I understand." Precia said. "One obstacle at a time. First the Angels, then the old men. Come, Fuyutsuki; let us seize victory by throat and _squeeze_."

Fuyutsuki looked into the Commander's eyes and saw bright embers of magic burning in her pupils. Then she abruptly stood and exited the room, leaving Fuyutsuki to follow mutely behind her.

* * *

Upon being made aware of Sahaquiel's appearance, Lindy immediately pulled the Magical Girls out of school and summoned them to one of NERV's briefing rooms. Behind her, a chart showed the projected path of Sahaquiel's orbit.

"Alright, girls, this next Angel could pose a problem." Lindy said. "It's currently in a low Earth Orbit, sitting geostationary about 2,000 km above us, and it shows no signs of coming any closer."

"So... how do we attack something in orbit?" Nanoha asked.

"Not even my magic is powerful enough to hit something two thousand kilometers away." Hayate said.

"Shamal could open a portal." Vita suggested. "We could shoot the Angel through it."

"I don't think that's such a good idea." Shamal said. "If I opened a portal to the vacuum of space, the difference in atmospheric pressure would probably suck us through."

"We can't hit the Angel right now, but it will almost certainly come closer." Fate said. "Every Angel thus far has been drawn to the GeoFront; if this one is the same, it will have to drop out of orbit eventually."

"That's our best hope." Lindy confirmed. "However, the Angel isn't exactly sitting on its laurels up there. It's been dropping highly explosive projectiles from orbit. They weren't a problem while the Angel was over the ocean, but now it's right over our heads and Tokyo-3 is in the line of fire. Until the Angel comes into combat range, you're going to have to hold position over the city and intercept any bombs it drops. The MAGI have tapped into the feed from a spy satellite with a camera on the Angel so I'll be able to inform you over the radio whenever it drops a bomb, but it'll be up to you to protect the city."

"You can count on us." Nanoha said.

"We should get into the sky right away." Shamal said. "I'll open a portal."

Shamal's magic took the girls to the rooftop of the tallest non-retracted building in the city. They then formed their Barrier Jackets, activated their flight spells, and took to the sky. They spread out as they flew upwards, trying to provide coverage of the whole city. The roof of the GeoFront was thinnest over the very center of Tokyo-3, but they couldn't afford to assume that the Angel would focus all of its attacks at that point — it might anticipate that they would focus their defenses there, and launch attacks from the outskirts instead.

"Will the attacks be falling from directly above?" Signum inquired.

"Not precisely." Lindy said over their earpieces. "The Earth is rotating from West to East at about a quarter kilometer per second. Since it takes several seconds for the Angel's attacks to fall, it needs to aim a couple kilometers east of its actual target. So from your perspectives, it'll look like the projectiles are coming in at a slight angle, from the East rather than straight up."

"Understood." Signum acknowledged.

"Girls." Lindy voice was suddenly tense. "Sahaquiel has just dropped a projectile."

"I can see it." Vita reported. "Moving to intercept."

"Be careful." Lindy warned. "This Angel's attacks are as powerful as N-2 mines. No barrier you can form will hold up to a direct hit."

"Not a problem." Vita said. "Graf Eisen has the power to knock around explosive magic without setting it off. It can hit the Angel's attack around like a Swallow Flier."

The incoming attack was clearly visible now, a dark sphere surrounded by a blazing corona as it roared through the atmosphere towards its target. Vita flew up to meet it, pouring her magic into her hammer.

"Deadly Punishment!" Vita shouted.

Graf Eisen burned with orange magic as she swung it at the plummeting bomb. There was a brilliant flash of light as the two types of offensive magic impacted; then Vita's power prevailed, launching the explosive sphere back into the sky.

"Ha! Returned to sender!" Vita said.

"Well, it was a very impressive swing, but I don't think you actually hit it all the way back into orbit." Hayate said diplomatically.

"MAGI are tracking the projectile... looks like it will fall somewhere over the ocean." Lindy informed them.

"Too bad." Nanoha said. "It would've been nice to give the Angel a taste of its own medicine."

"Maybe we can." Shamal said. "I think I can use my portals to send its bombs back at it."

"What about the whole getting-sucked-into-space thing you mentioned before?" Vita asked.

"My portals are one-sided." Shamal said. "If I created a portal facing us, for you to try to shoot through, we'd get sucked through it. But if I created a portal facing upwards, to catch the falling bomb, then it should be safe for us to hide underneath it."

"And any counterattack through the portal by the Angel will emerge upwards, away from us." Signum said, nodding. "I approve."

"MAGI report that the Angel has launched another projectile." Lindy told the girls. "If you're going to do this, I would suggest doing it now."

"Alright, get below me and brace yourselves." Shamal said. "This could get a little windy."

Shamal raised her hands and a portal opened in the sky above the city, wide enough to be certain of catching the falling explosive. Viewed from the underside by the Magical Girls, it appeared as a flat disk of Shamal's green magical energy. However, the fact that the other side was a portal to outer space was instantly apparent. Sudden winds howled forth as the difference in pressure caused the atmosphere to begin rushing through the opening. The girls increased the flow of magic to their flight spells as an instant tornado formed in the sky above Tokyo-3, its mouth terminating in the glowing disc of Shamal's magic.

"We're tracking the projectile." Lindy said. "Incoming... Incoming... Okay, it's through!"

"Closing the portal now." Shamal reported.

The sheet of green magic vanished, and the cyclonic winds began to calm once more.

"What is the status of the target?" Signum asked.

"Hold on a moment..." Lindy said. "The projectile has exploded... Waiting to regain visual... Okay, wow, that is not good."

* * *

High above, in geosynchronous orbit above Tokyo-3, Sahaquiel was buffeted by the explosive energy of its own redirected attack. Realizing that further long-range bombardment would be useless, the Angel decided to take a more direct approach towards its goal. The Angel's Barrier flared to life, a massive blue magic circle the width of its entire body which hung in the space directly below it like an upside-down halo. A moment latter, the Angel began to descend.

Sahaquiel plummeted from the sky down towards the city far below. The flat surface of its Barrier blazed with friction heat as the Angel plowed a path through the thickening atmosphere. A pillar of fire marked Sahaquiel's descent as the Angel fell from the heavens like the fist of a wrathful God, the impervious magical shield of its Barrier held rigid before it like a battering ram.

* * *

"The Angel is trying to drop itself on NERV." Lindy told the girls. "Its Barrier is more powerful than anything we've ever seen before. If it's allowed to hit, it'll bulldoze straight through the city and the GeoFront. You have to crack its Barrier before it comes down."

"Breaking a powerful Barrier?" Vita asked. "Sounds like a job for you, Hayate."

"I'm pretty sure I can take down the Angel's Barrier in one hit." Hayate said. "But... it'll take time for me to charge up the attack."

"The Angel is coming down fast and still accelerating." Lindy reported. "I don't think we have much time to spare."

"We'll buy you the time you need." Fate said. "Come on, Nanoha."

The two girls accelerated into the sky like rockets, rising to meet the falling Angel. It was impossible to miss, a wall of fire filling the sky above them. As they rose, the girls flew apart from each other; and as the Angel descended between them, they cast their spells.

"Barrel Shot!"

"Lightning Bind!"

Pink and yellow magical circles constricted around the Angel's two arm-like projections as the girls seized it in the vice-like grip of their power. Nanoha and Fate were immediately yanked downwards, dragged by the Angel's incredible momentum. However, they resisted, pouring every bit of magic they possessed into their flight spells, desperately pulling upwards on the massive bulk of the Angel. The terrible force of the Angel's descent seemed irresistible, inexorably pulling the girls downwards, but they would not give up. And as they strained mightily on the magic tethers connecting their Intelligent Devices to the Angel, they began to have an effect. The shell of fire surrounding the Angel's Barrier began to dissipate as the friction between it and the atmosphere lessened; and the wind roaring through the girls' hair as they were pulled down by the Angel lessened. They couldn't halt the Angel's fall, but they could slow it.

And then, from somewhere below them, they felt a massive buildup of power. Even above the sound of the air rushing past them, Hayate's voice rang out loud and clear.

"Hraesvelgr!"

Beams of white energy blazed upwards and struck the Angel's Barrier. Upon impact, they exploded, releasing an incredible amount of power. In the midst of the white-hot inferno of magical energies, the Barrier shattered like glass, and the Angel's descent slowed even further.

"We did it!" Nanoha said. "Vita, Signum, finish it—"

Nanoha had spoken too soon. Even as the words left her mouth, a second Barrier flickered to life beneath Sahaquiel. This Barrier was much smaller than the previous one, shielding only the Angel's central body. Just as Nanoha noticed that, the Angel's body ripped free from its arms. Freed from the grip of Nanoha and Fate's magic, which was wrapped around the now-distintegrating purged appendages, the Angel once more began to accelerate downwards towards Tokyo-3.

"I can catch it!" Shamal called.

She began opening an upwards-facing portal in the path of the Angel's fall. However, Sahaquiel had grown wise to this trick. A second magic circle appeared around the rim of Shamal's portal, a ring of blue magic bearing the same sigil as the Angel's Barrier. The Angel's magic circle then squeezed shut, constricting Shamal's portal and forcing it closed.

"It didn't work!" Shamal said, her voice equal parts surprise and fear

"Ten seconds to impact!" Lindy shouted. "Take it down NOW!"

Signum and Vita were already in motion.

"Violet Lightning Flash!" Signum intoned.

Magical flames flowed across the surface of her sword and she began flying upwards to meet the falling Angel head-on. Vita made no attempt to follow; she was pouring all of her magic into her Intelligent Device.

"Graf Eisen! Gigantform!"

The hammer Graf Eisen was a construct of pure magic, a projection of the Intelligent Device bonded to her body. By pouring more of her magic into the construct, she could increase its size. The hammer grew in size several times over, until the head was larger than Vita herself. Then Vita extended one hand and began summoning as much offensive magic as she could. The attack took form as a large ball of incandescent orange energy. Vita dropped beneath it and swung Graf Eisen into the blazing sphere, shouting the name of her attack as she did so:

"Comet Flier!" Vita roared, then: "Signum! Incoming!"

Signum smoothly rolled out of the way of the attack to let it pass her, then once more poured power into her flight spells and resumed her ascent, trailing closely in the wake of the large attack as it shot like a cannonball towards Sahaquiel.

"Panzer Geist!" Signum shouted.

A red barrier flared to life in front of Signum as she flew closely in the wake of the Comet Flier. For a moment, her face shone with sweat from the effort of maintaining three spells at once. Then Vita's spell impacted the Angel's Barrier.

The bright orange ball of energy exploded into a raging inferno. The Angel had still not fully recovered from Hayate's attack; its second Barrier was not as strong as its first. The wall of blue light was shattered by the detonation, breaking down into scattered glints of light and once more leaving the Angel defenseless. The blast wave from the explosion hammered against Signum as well, but most of its force had already been expended. Though the shield Signum had raised was broken by the shockwave, her Barrier Jacket held up against the wave of energy that rolled over her as she flew into the fading blast. Signum didn't hesitate for a moment as the energy buffeted her, but instead raised her flaming sword above her head. A moment later, she collided with the falling Angel, plunging straight into the center of its eye. The focused magic energy of the sword ripped easily through the Angel's rubbery flesh, and moments later Signum erupted out of its back amidst a geyser of blue blood. On either side of her were halves of the Angel's crystalline Core, which had been cleaved neatly down the center. As Signum rose into the air, the Angel burst apart below her, turning into a torrential downpour of blue slush splattering over the buildings and streets of Tokyo-3.

"You did it!" Hayate cheered.

"That looked pretty dangerous." Vita said. "What if my attack hadn't broken the Angel's Barrier?"

"The situation was desperate." Signum said. "It was necessary to take all possible measures against the Angel, no matter the risk to myself."

"Signum!" Nanoha called. "Are you alright?"

She and Fate were descending back to the level of the other Magical Girls, just above the roofs of the buildings of Tokyo-3.

"I am fine." Signum assured them.

"That was very brave." Nanoha said.

"You did well." Fate told her.

The girls landed, and the Magical Girls all gathered on the roof. Around them, the air shimmered with dancing blue sparks: the enormous quantity of blue blood that the Angel had released over the city was evaporating, dissolving into the air as the magic which had given it form faded with the Angel's death. The whole city was briefly infused with an unearthly blue glow as the sparks released by the blood as it faded drifted aimlessly through the air.

"It looks kind of pretty, don't you think?" Nanoha said.

"Yes. Very pretty." Fate agreed.

And while the other Magical Girls returned to NERV to report to Lindy, Nanoha and Fate stayed on the roof a while longer, holding hands while standing amidst the beautiful radiance of the dead Angel.


	20. Mother Of Lilim

**Chapter 20: Mother Of Lilim**

NERV was winding down after the conclusion of the battle with Sahaquiel. The base had been on heightened alert for quite some time, as the Angel had taken a slower than usual approach to Japan, and so now that the danger had ended a lot of the staff were eager to go home. The atmosphere of tension during an Angel attack was both physically and emotionally draining; the NERV workforce was always left exhausted by the conclusion of the battles. Fortunately, it had been deemed unlikely that two Angel attacks could occur in a short space of time — each new Angel only began awakening once its predecessor was destroyed — so the staff were able to take a well-needed rest without fear of being caught flat-footed by another attack.

Lindy was among the last of the employees to leave for the night. As usual, she'd gotten bogged down in paperwork following the Angel attack, so she'd told Nanoha and Fate to just go back to the apartment ahead of her while she finished up. It would make things considerably easier on her, Lindy knew, if she took to sleeping in Central Dogma to rid herself of the commute. Rooms were available, for those who desired them. Precia spent all her time in the building, of course; rumor had it that she slept in her office, so that she could be at her desk within seconds in the event of an emergency. Fuyutsuki slept in the building too, with the excuse that he wasn't as young as he used to be and didn't want to deal with the hassle of the commute. Since the Vice Commander was to all appearances as active as he'd always been, however, popular opinion was that it was one of the minor dominance games he was always playing with Precia: if the Commander was going to sleep in her office, then he wasn't going to appear any softer. While Lindy didn't know the precise details of the relationship, she was aware that Fuyutsuki had once been Precia's teacher. Now that he had a job as her suboordinate, Precia seemed to constantly needle him about the reversal of power in their relationship, in response to which he seemed to feel the need to prove that he hadn't slackened any. Finally, Ritsuko also slept in Central Dogma. Though there were plenty of technicians qualified to work on the MAGI system, Ritsuko still felt the need to personally babysit the supercomputers.

Lindy had resisted the lure of moving down full-time for a number of reasons. For one thing, she was the acting guardian of Nanoha and Fate. She didn't like the idea of forcing the girls to live underground for the sake of efficiency. Look where that had led with Precia and Fate: it might technically be more efficient if the girls didn't have to go to school, so they could be on call in the GeoFront at all times, but Lindy couldn't believe it was healthy for them. Likewise, she felt it important that, even in this time of war, they continue to live under the open sky. She didn't want them to develop a siege mentality: acting like soldiers dug into a foxhole, always anticipating the next Angel attack. She wanted them to have the chance to be children as well. Her own childhood had been brutally disrupted by the Second Impact; involved as they were in the war, Lindy yet hoped to spare the girls that kind of trauma. Another, more personal reason was that Lindy wanted to draw a line between her work and home life. She wanted to be able to put her work away and go home for the day. If she lived in the GeoFront, it would feel like she was always on duty. She didn't want her work to dominate her life, to turn into an obsession. Because that would make her like Precia. And while Lindy had once respected the Commander, she had never actually _liked_ her. The Commander didn't let anyone get close enough to like her.

Lindy was just about to leave when Clyde stepped into her office.

"Sorry, I can't hook up with you tonight." Lindy said preemptively. "Don't think I'm not tempted, but the girls are waiting for me back at the apartment."

"That's not what I was going to ask." Clyde said. "Actually, I was wondering if you'd like to come on a short walk with me. There's something I want to show you."

Lindy briefly glanced at the clock and decided that at this point a little time more or less wouldn't matter much. The girls understood her work sometimes kept her at NERV late. Lindy followed Clyde as he left her office and began leading her deeper into the bowels of the GeoFront.

"Where are we headed?" Lindy asked.

"Terminal Dogma." Clyde said.

"How do you plan to get down there?" Lindy asked. "I've never even _heard_ of anyone but the Commander going to Terminal Dogma."

"It was a bit difficult, getting access." Clyde admitted. "Precia is somewhat paranoid about who's allowed down there. For a while I thought that the only elevator to the lowest levels was located in her office, and not even I would dare trespass there. However, when I informed the Council of this difficulty, they were only too happy to render me assistance. They gave me blueprints of the facility, and what do you know — the MAGI life-support system has its roots in Terminal Dogma. That means lots of pipes to connect them, and lots of pumps to force the liquid up; and that, in turn, means lots of maintenance to keep everything in tip-top shape. The MAGI are far too important for there to be any laxity in that area. After that, it was easy: the list of maintenance workers that Precia trusts with access to the MAGI's life-support is quite short, as you might imagine. Even shorter now than it was before the blackout. Following one of those workers led me, well... here."

They were in a section of NERV that Lindy had never been to before, which was not in itself surprising; the facilities within the GeoFront were like an entire self-contained city beneath the Earth. No one's job required them to travel every nook and cranny, and Lindy had seldom had need to enter the maintenance areas. What caught her attention was the guard post they came to, which looked every bit as imposing as the surface entrances to NERV.

"Looks like serious security." Lindy said. "But where are the guards?"

"Well, guard duty is a pretty boring job; I wouldn't be surprised if they skived off." Clyde said. "You know, hour after hour of standing around, day after day of nothing happening; it's not like someone trying to break into Terminal Dogma is a common occurrence. They probably figure no one will notice if they take a quick break."

"I have a hard time believing that." Lindy said. "If the Commander wanted only her most trusted maintenance workers to have access to this area, she'd also want only her most trusted guards checking to make sure only the right people got through."

"True, true." Clyde said. "In that case, it would seem that some absolute _bastard_ has used a cunning ruse to lure them away from their post and lock them in a restroom."

"Clyde!" Lindy admonished. "They'll tell the Commander — you'll get in trouble..."

"Not half as much trouble as I'll get in for what I did to the people the Commander had tailing me." Clyde said. "Really, it's their own fault; I would've preferred to just lose them for a bit, but they were too competent for their own good, so we had to do things the hard way."

"Clyde." Now real alarm was creeping into Lindy's voice. "This isn't a game. The Commander is going to be _furious_. There's no telling what she'd going to do when she finds out. Why are you taking such a big risk?"

"Because I think you deserve to know the truth." Clyde said simply. "In any case, she already knows I'm a spy; it'll hardly come as a surprise to her that I've been spying. And she'll only know that _I_ was here, not that I brought you. Any punishment that does come down will fall on me alone."

"Don't you care what happens to you?" Lindy asked.

"Not as much as I care what happens to you." Clyde said earnestly.

"Damn it!" Lindy said. "Well, I care about what happens to you! What kind of effect do you think it'll have on me if you get executed for treason!"

"I hardly think it'll come to that." Clyde said. "I still have my SEELE credentials. Precia isn't in open war with the old men yet; she'll use some tact. Or, if she is ready to escalate to open aggression against the old men, one act of spying more or less will hardly have an impact on my fate."

"Well... if you're certain this is what you want... lead on." Lindy said.

Their path took them through a door which was locked by a keycard scanner, which Clyde deceived using some spy gadget that looked like a Swiss army knife until unfolded, and then to an unmarked elevator. The elevator had buttons for numerous floors — presumably the levels where the pumps for the MAGI system were located — but Clyde pressed only the bottom button. The elevator demanded a key be inserted and turned before it would start, a security precaution which Clyde bypassed using another tool that folded out of his Swiss army knife. The elevator then accelerated down the deep, deep shaft leading to Terminal Dogma.

At last, the doors opened, revealing the secret hidden at the heart of NERV. They were in a great cavern illuminated by banks of lights. The platform they stood on was like a pier, jutting out into a sea of blood. Powerful pumps drew the precious liquid up into pipes that, many kilometers above, fed into the MAGI's containment shells. And before them, crucified against an enormous cross, was the gigantic form of the Black Mother. She was humanoid, naked and entirely hairless, possessing stark white flesh, and had a mask emblazoned with the Seven Eyes of God cruelly affixed over Her face. Lindy regarded the imposing figure with naked shock.

"An Angel!" Lindy said.

"Not technically." Clyde said. "Lilith is actually more closely related to us than to the Angels. She is Adam's dark counterpart: just as Adam is the progenitor of all Angelic life, Lilith here is the mother of all terrestrial life."

"So the Angels attacking NERV have all been trying to reach Lilith?" Lindy asked. "Second Impact was triggered when a human made contact with Adam, so... if an Angel came into contact with Lilith, is that what would cause Third Impact?"

"You catch on fast." Clyde said. "Yes. That is why the Angels are attacking the GeoFront, and why we must defend it."

"Why didn't the Commander tell me about this?" Lindy asked.

"Because you didn't need to know in order to do your job?" Clyde suggested. "Precia has always been big on controlling information; she's really into that 'need-to-know only' stuff. Of course, in this case she pretty much has a point. Knowledge of Lilith is a powerful thing. Back when Precia was the favorite child of SEELE, the old men let know all about Lilith, and look at the situation now. No, the fewer people Precia tells about Lilith, the fewer rivals she has for control of the Black Mother.

"Then... who do you think knows?" Lindy asked.

"Precia and Fuyutsuki, certainly." Clyde said. "Dr. Akagi as well; she's the only one who could have designed this restraint system. Beyond that... probably not very many people at all."

"I thought of Ritsuko as a friend." Lindy said sadly. "How could she keep this from me?"

"Don't underestimate the hold Precia has over her." Clyde warned. "The Commander has ways of ensuring people's loyalty. You should know that better than most."

Lindy couldn't deny that. She remembered all too clearly how she herself had been manipulated. When the Commander had promised to keep her father's involvement in Second Impact a secret, to prevent his name from being tarnished in the eyes of the world, Lindy had been willing to do anything that was asked her. Because the contrapositive of that promise was the implied threat that if Lindy _didn't_ obey, the Commander would allow the secret to slip. Of course, in the end, the Commander had done so anyway, despite Lindy's faithful service; Lindy's loyalty had earned her nothing but betrayal. And it occurred to her that Ritsuko could hardly expect better treatment.

"I wish I knew what the Commander was holding over Ritsuko." Lindy said. "Maybe I could help her."

"Maybe." Clyde shrugged. "Depends on what the secret is. But it's definitely something that Dr. Akagi doesn't want you to know, so you'd be facing an uphill struggle there. How long was it before you were willing to talk openly to me about your father? And I'm closer to you than you are to her, not to mention I was already in the loop on the Harlaown Expedition..."

"Okay, okay, I get your point." Lindy said.

"One more thing to consider." Clyde said. "Not long ago, Precia recovered the Core of Adam from beneath the New Dead Sea. That means the White Mother and Black Mother are now both being kept within this facility. What do you think would happen if the Mother of Angels and Mother of Humanity were to come into contact with each other?"

"An even bigger Third Impact?" Lindy hazarded.

"I wonder about that." Clyde said. "If that were the case, you'd think any sane person would want to keep Adam and Lilith as far away from one another as possible. And yet, Precia has decided to house them under the same roof. What's more, while the old men are upset about the current arrangement, it's not because of the danger but because _they_ want both Progenitors under their control. Tell me... have you ever heard of the Human Instrumentality Project?"

"Can't say I have." Lindy said.

"I'm not surprised." Clyde said. "Even at my position, I've only heard rumors. I suspect only those on the Council know the truth; them, and Precia. From what I've been able to piece together, it seems that the old men want Adam and Lilith to come into contact, though only once the Angels have been eliminated — it seems this so-called 'Forbidden Union' would be taken poorly by them. We've been able to win so far because they've come at us one at a time; it'd be a real problem if something drove them to team up."

"This 'Forbidden Union' business sounds like bad news." Lindy said. "And even if all the Angels are gone by the time it happens, I don't trust it to be harmless just because SEELE thinks it's a good idea. They knew that the Second Impact would kill billions but they caused it anyway to further their plans; who's to say they wouldn't deliberately cause Third Impact, if they thought they'd somehow benefit from it?"

"There is that, yes." Clyde said. "Unfortunately, I don't think there's anything we can do about it at the moment. Precia has hidden Adam even more thoroughly than Lilith; I haven't been able to pick up on the slightest hint of Her presence. Quite a feat, considering that we humans are supposed to be drawn to Her like flies to honey. Give the devil her due: Precia's paranoia has bred some quite effective security measures."

"Even if you did find Adam, what could you do? Kill Her?" Lindy asked. "Is that even possible? She survived Second Impact, after all."

"The Progenitors, for all their power, can be killed." Clyde said confidently. "I'm certain of that. The reason the old men are hesitant to move openly is because they fear that Adam or Lilith might get killed in the crossfire if an open war erupted between NERV and SEELE. They aren't willing to risk that, because the Progenitors are irreplaceable: the death of either one would mean the end of Instrumentality."

Lindy looked at the great Black Mother, impaled on her cross.

"Doesn't look like killing Her would be an easy job, though." Lindy said.

"No." Clyde admitted. "Probably only a weapon like the Arc-En-Ciel could do it. I'd have smuggled an N-2 mine down here if I'd thought conventional weapons could do the job."

"Even though you'd die?" Lindy asked.

"Wouldn't you be willing to die, to prevent a repeat of Second Impact?" Clyde asked.

"In a heartbeat." Lindy said without the slightest hesitation.

"I feel the same way." Clyde said. "I may not have the same personal connection to the tragedy as you; but believe me when I say that I'm not like my bosses, willing to throw away lives in Second Impact to achieve their ends. I'd do anything to prevent another catastrophe."

"Does this mean you're resigning from SEELE?" Lindy asked.

"Well, not officially; you'd better believe they'd shoot me for treason if I told them I opposed their plans." Clyde said. "SEELE is one of those organization's you're not allowed to leave alive. And just because I have my differences with old men doesn't mean I approve of what Precia's doing. Since she currently possesses the Progenitors, she's the one who's holding the cards, and it makes sense to work with SEELE to stop her."

"But unofficially?" Lindy prompted.

"No way I'm letting Third Impact go down." Clyde said.

Lindy smiled.

"Glad to hear we're on the same side again." she said.

"Hey, just what kind of boyfriend do you think I am?" Clyde asked. "I've _always_ been on your side, even when work kept us apart."

"Just checking." Lindy said. "What's the plan now?"

"I'm going to try to find out more about this Forbidden Union and Instrumentality stuff." Clyde said. "Forewarned is fore-armed, as they say. Maybe there's a subtler way to stop bad things from going down than bumping off one of the Progenitors. And hey, maybe we're wrong to think the Forbidden Union is going to involve Third Impact. Maybe SEELE really is working only for the benefit of mankind this time — not too likely, given their track record; but stranger things have happened, and it'd be rather embarrassing getting ourselves killed to stop a good thing. While I'm working the SEELE angle, you can try and find out anything you can about Precia's plans. She trusts you more than she trusts me — which admittedly isn't saying much; but while she isn't likely to outright blab sensitive information like where she's keeping Adam, she might accidentally give away valuable information. A casual comment about what she plans to do once the war's over could give us a hint as to what she expects to go down after the Forbidden Union."

"I understand." Lindy said. "There's just one more think I'd like to ask. Should I tell Nanoha and Fate what you've told me?"

"Your choice." Clyde said. "If you think your girls have a right to know, I won't object to you telling them. If you'd rather not burden them with the knowledge, well, as their guardian, that's your decision to make. You've been a good parent to them so far — a much better mother to Fate than Precia ever was, I must say — so I trust your judgement in this matter."

"Thanks. That means a lot to me." Lindy said.

They stepped back into the elevator, which began to long ascent back to the facility above. The Seven Eyes of God painted on Lilith's mask continued to stare unblinkingly at the closed elevator doors long after they had gone.


	21. The Fear Of God

**Chapter 21: The Fear Of God**

Nanoha dreamed about Fate. She had dreamed about the girl more than once since that day she had first been captivated by her beautiful eyes, but never with such intensity. The two of them were standing on the roof of one of the skyscrapers of Tokyo-3, as they had after defeating Sahaquiel; but now it was night and the two of them were illuminated by an impossibly large moon. The silver radiance of the moon highlighted the contours of Fate's body and made her eyes shine like beacons.

Fate began to walk towards Nanoha. Almost reflexively, Nanoha spread her arms to embrace Fate. The city around them seemed to disappear; all of Nanoha's attention was on Fate now. Fate leaned in and gave Nanoha a kiss on the lips. An electric thrill shot through Nanoha at the contact. The kiss went on and on, growing in intensity with each passing second, until finally Nanoha awoke with a start. She immediately felt guilty about having such an intimate dream about her best friend.

"Are you okay, Nanoha?" Fate asked. "I heard you moaning in your sleep. I was worried that you were having a nightmare."

"It's okay, I'm fine." Nanoha hastily assured her.

In fact, her head was spinning. She knew it was normal for girls undergoing puberty to begin having dreams of a romantic nature. However, she had always assumed that she'd dream about boys. There wasn't any boy in particular she was interested in, but girls were supposed to like boys, right? Why had she imagined an intimate encounter with Fate? Was it because Fate was always in her mind, how that the two of them were living together? Or else...

"I'm going to take a shower." Nanoha said, retreating to the bathroom.

She started up the shower and closed her eyes as the hot water ran down her back, trying to organize her thoughts. _It's just a dream,_ she told herself. _It doesn't mean anything_. Everyone had embarrassing dreams. Fate definitely mattered a lot to her, and they were undeniably very emotionally close, but that was only because they were best friends. Nanoha couldn't ever recall feeling the same way about any of her previous friends, but she'd been through a lot more with Fate than she had with anyone else. The two of them had fought Angels together. It was only natural to feel a certain amount of intimacy with someone who you trusted with your life, and who trusted you in turn.

And yet... Nanoha had never had any interest in fantasizing about boys. She'd assumed she'd eventually grow into it: she'd begun puberty somewhat earlier than average, and it would take some time until her emotional desires caught up to her physical growth. But when she thought back to her dream, the sensation of Fate's soft lips touching her own, it made her feel...

"Nanoha!" Fate called. "How long are you going to spend showering? We're supposed to go to Central Dogma for some tests today."

Nanoha snapped to attention and hurriedly finished her shower, pushing her confusing tangle of thoughts about Fate to the back of her mind.

* * *

Lorenz Keel took a seat in his office and activated the holographic communications system. Six black monoliths marked SEELE 02 through SEELE 07 appeared in the room, signifying the presence of the Council members. To those people, in their own holographic rooms, Keel would appear as a monoth marked SEELE 01. The seven Council members of SEELE had arranged their monoliths in a loose circle, leaving one position empty. That position was frequently occupied by Precia, calling them to feign loyalty; or, more rarely, by Clyde, delivering them mostly accurate but entirely irrelevant reports on the few areas of NERV that weren't so heavily classified that he was allowed to wander them unsupervised and poke around a bit. On this occasion, however, the eighth spot had been taken by a rather unusual visitor: a black monolith bearing the legend JUDAS 00.

When the monolith spoke, the voice was heavy with distortion. The advanced holographic system used for the meetings was of course capable of recreating one's voice with perfect fidelity; however, just as the Council members hid their appearances behind black monoliths, they intentionally added distortion to their voices. Even when speaking to people who knew their identities, deepening their voices and adding a touch of reverb made them sound more commanding. When speaking to people who weren't in the inner Council, the alteration served the obvious purpose of disguising their identity. The identity of JUDAS 00 was known to all in attendance at the meeting, but you could never be too careful when working for a Commander as paranoid as Precia Testarossa.

"It is as you feared." JUDAS 00 informed the Council. "Precia has not merely imprisoned the White Mother; she has gone so far as to alter Adam's Core. She seeks to bend Adam to her will and use Her as a weapon against you."

"Truly that woman's hunger for power knows no limit." SEELE 06 muttered.

"This is outrageous!" SEELE 03 declared. "Testarossa has gone too far this time! And you allowed this insolence?"

"I didn't dare interfere, not when Adam was in such close proximity to Lilith." JUDAS 00 said. "The risk that disrupting Precia's designs would inadvertently cause the Forbidden Union to occur prematurely was too great."

"Yes." SEELE 04 agreed. "Refraining from hasty action was the correct decision. The stakes are far too large for us to take needless risks."

"No permanent harm has been done." SEELE 05 concurred. "Dr. Scaglietti has assured me that, once the White Mother has been returned to our rightful possession, he will be able to reverse what Madam Testarossa has done. Our plans will proceed unhindered."

"Ah, the magnificent Dr. Scaglietti." SEELE 07 said. "Creating him was one of our best decisions. But not even he can reverse the Forbidden Union, once it occurs. With both Adam and Lilith in her possession, the bitch Precia can initiate the Union at any time. This cannot be allowed; the Union must occur on our terms, not hers!"

"Calm yourself." SEELE 04 demanded. "Precia will not initiate the Forbidden Union until the last Angel has been defeated. We need not act until that time."

"Yes." Lorenz Keel finally spoke, his voice booming from the monolith marked SEELE 01. "With the MAGI under our control, the Commander can keep nothing secret from us. We will know the moment the final Angel has been defeated. At that instant, the Arc-En-Ciel will fire upon NERV. The Progenitors will be unharmed if we use the weapon at less than 100% power, and our team of Magical Girls will be standing by to recover Them from the wreckage — as well as to pacify any survivors. And then there will be nothing left to stop us."

"You intend to kill everyone in NERV?" JUDAS 00 asked.

"You have proved your loyalty to us." Keel said. "I recommend you flee the GeoFront as soon as the battle with the final Angel begins. If you manage to make it clear of the blast zone, you will be welcomed back into the fold and richly rewarded for your service. But the rest of the members of NERV? They are traitors who chose to follow the Commander rather than us. They will die."

"All of them?" JUDAS 00 inquired. "I thought Clyde was also one of your agents. And what about the four Magical Girls you sent over?"

"Oh, of course _they_ will be spared." Keel spoke as if this should be self-evident. "We look after our own. Clyde will be officially reassigned before the final Angel attacks. As for the Magical Girls, they will be away from the GeoFront fighting the Angel, and thus well clear of the target zone when the Arc-En-Ciel is fired. You need not concern yourself over their safety."

"And... if there was someone else I wanted spared...?" JUDAS 00 asked.

"I understand." Keel said sympathetically. "You've worked with these people for years, and become friends with some of them. But do not forget that they are our enemies. Given the chance, they would destroy all that we have been working for. We cannot risk our plans out of concern for their safety. The more people we try to evacuate, the greater the risk that the Commander will catch on to our plans."

"...I understand, Chairman." JUDAS 00 said, a touch reluctantly.

"Still, we do owe you for all you've done for us." Keel continued. "If it's really important to you... make up a lie to get them to come with you when you flee the GeoFront after the final Angel's appearance. I can arrange for them to be pardoned."

"Thank you, Chairman." JUDAS 00 said. "I will continue to observe and report."

The monolith vanished, indicating that JUDAS 00 had cut the connection.

"You are being awfully free with your favors." SEELE 02 said suspiciously. "Are you really so appreciative of your Judas, to promise this much?"

"Hardly." Keel said dismissively. "I will promise my agents whatever they wish to hear, if that's what is necessary to obtain their loyalty. But in reality, they are all expendable. There is no need for us to wait until the final Angel is defeated to use to Arc-En-Ciel; we've gone to great pains to ensure that the last Angel to assault NERV will not be a tricky one like Sandalphon or Sahaquiel, but rather one that the weapon can easily target and dispatch. And we don't want NERV engaging it in a distant battlefield, either — then the NERV Magical Girls would also be clear when the Arc-En-Ciel was fired, and they'd be certain to raise a ruckus. No, what we will do is use the MAGI override codes to reduce their capability to detect Angels so that their range only covers Tokyo-3; NERV will not notice the Angel until it is already on their doorstep. At that time, we will fire the Arc-En-Ciel. The Angel, Precia, the NERV Magical Girls, everyone in the GeoFront — all of our enemies will be destroyed in a single blow. For a prize such as that, Judas, Clyde, and our loaned Magical Girls are all quite acceptable losses."

* * *

Life does not evolve along a single path. Just as terrestrial life forms had evolved into myriad forms comprising kingdoms Protista, Plantae, and Animalia, the Angels born of Adam had the potential to diverge into forms of infinite diversity and beauty. Every Angel began life with the same form: the crystalline red Core that comprised the heart of their being. From that point on, however, their growth diverged as each one's magic developed along a different path.

The previous Angels that had attacked Tokyo-3 had taken the forms of gigantic beasts. However, the Angel Iruel had developed along a different path. If fell upon the unsuspecting city as a mist too fine to see with the naked eye. Unnoticed by the citizens going about their daily lives, it seeped into the ground, flowing through microscopic flaws in the shielding that separated the GeoFront from the surface. Where it could not find a path, it created one, boring holes no thicker than the width of a hair — far too small to trigger any of the heat, pressure, and vibration sensors that would sound alarms in response to a brute force attack against the armor plating. Undetected, the Angel penetrated the ceiling of the GeoFront and drifted down through the cavernous space. Upon reaching the ground, it once more began working its way downward, following the ducts and pipes of Central Dogma down towards their bottommost point: the prison of the Black Mother, Lilith.

However, NERV had more subtle ways of detecting invasion than the crude mechanical sensors that the Angel had bypassed. Though it could take on a form invisible to human eyes, it could not conceal its magic; its very body _was_ magic, sculpted into physical form. The organic brains of the MAGI, in being enhanced beyond normal the Lilim capacity to process information, had also been rendered more sensitive to magic. They instantly detected the magic of the Angel Iruel as it passed through Central Dogma; and within a fraction of a second, they had sounded alarms all throughout NERV. Upon hearing the siren indicating an Angel attack, the first response of all of the Magical Girls was to call upon their Intelligent Devices and summon their magical power. Angels, being naturally solitary beings, found close proximity to magic other than their own quite unsettling; the sudden burst of power released by six Magical Girls in the same building all activating their Devices was enough to give Iruel pause. And possibly even more dangerously, it could sense its Mother — the White Progenitor, Adam. She was greatly diminished, even compared to Her condition after Second Impact; but even so, there was no mistaking Her power.

Adam was more than a Mother to the Angels; She was a living God to them — a being of a higher order. And Her dark counterpart, Lilith, was also on the level of a God. Only their Mother, their God, was fit to attain to Forbidden Union with the Black Progenitor Lilith. To think otherwise would have been sacrilege, if Angels had possessed any concept of sacrilege. However, being more akin to instinct-driven animals, they lacked the capacity for that kind of complex thought. Iruel "understood", in the loosest possible sense of the term, that Adam would be displeased if a mere Angel tried to attain the same Forbidden Union with Lilith that Adam Herself sought. However, that knowledge meant nothing in the face of the overpowering instinctual urge to seek out the Black Mother and become one with Her. Given Adam's current weakness, Iruel might be able to if not outfight Her then at least outmaneuver Her; if Adam was already in such close proximity to Lilith, and yet had not initiated the Forbidden Union, it was because something was holding Her back. Iruel's very nature compelled it to ignore the desires of its God and to seek the Forbidden Union for itself. However, the Angel's instincts also forced to see the Magical Girls around it as an intolerable threat, one that must be dealt with before it proceeded to Terminal Dogma. The Angel's current body had been designed for infiltration, not magical combat. It began insinuating itself into NERV's walls and shifting to a more defensible form.

* * *

"I'm descending to Terminal Dogma." Precia said. "I will protect Lilith myself. The Angel will not be able to make it pass _me_, of that you can be certain."

"Are you sure?" Fuyutsuki asked. "Forgive me for doubting you, Commander; but unlike the girls, you've never been in combat with an Angel before. Your magical abilities are still uncertain."

"I am still mastering my newfound powers, but they will be adequate to this task." Precia said. "According to the MAGI's analysis, this Angel's abilities are geared for infiltration rather than direct confrontation. If it had the offensive power, it'd be ripping this base apart as we speak. Instead, it hunkers downs and fortifies its position — it knows it would lose in a direct contest of strength, so instead it pursues a cautious strategy. I would not be so reckless to attempt to challenge it on its chosen battlefield, but if I take a defensive stance in Terminal Dogma then it will be forced to be the aggressor."

"Impeccable logic as always." Fuyutsuki said.

"Of course." Precia said. "I always was your best student, was I not, professor?"

"Don't get too pleased with yourself." Fuyutsuki said. "If you're in Terminal Dogma raising a shield, that'll prevent the Angel from trying to make an end-run towards Lilith, but we'll still be left with the problem of dislodging the Angel from our base."

"Send the Magical Girls." Precia said. "That is why we keep them around, is it not?"

"You just said that the Angel is obviously taking a defensive position, and that attacking it on its chosen ground would be reckless." Fuyutsuki objected.

"Unlike me, the Magical Girls are expendable." Precia said. "Given the circumstances, I will also accept significant damage to the compromised portion of the facility as a necessary loss."

"I see." Fuyutsuki said tonelessly.

"Come now, professor." Precia chided. "Did you think that the conflict against the Angels would be nothing but a string of easy victories? In any war there are casualties on both sides. We have been lucky so far — partially because fortune favors the well-prepared, but also undeniably because a few random rolls of the dice have turned up in our favor. No winning streak lasts forever. We must be prepared to make the hard and necessary sacrifices it will take to triumph over the Angels and over SEELE. You yourself once said you were willing to die to prevent the old men from implementing Instrumentality. Has your resolve wavered since then?"

Fuyutsuki thought back to that day so many years ago, when in the wake of Second Impact he had told Precia that he was prepared to die opposing SEELE. And Precia, ever the pragmatist, had said that it would be better to _live_ opposing SEELE — live and _win_ — and that she had the perfect plan for doing so...

"No." Fuyutsuki said. "It has not."

"Good." Precia said. "Tell Major Harlaown to brief the Magical Girls."

* * *

"This Angel caught us off guard." Lindy informed the Magical Girls. "We never thought an Angel would penetrate so far into the GeoFront so quickly. We're going to have to act fast to prevent it from getting any further."

"The tactical situation seems disadvantageous." Fate said. "All of our previous battles against Angels were fought outside, in large open spaces. We never trained for fighting in a confined environment like NERV."

"And we won't be able to use our full power inside the base." Nanoha said. "We'd blow ourselves up along with the Angel."

"Is there any way we could lure it back up to the surface, or at least to the GeoFront?" Shamal asked. "That worked pretty well against Sandalphon."

"Believe me, it's the first thing I thought of." Lindy said. "But I don't think Iruel here is in a hurry to leave. It's stopped moving and seems to have started growing, spreading into the surrounding portions of NERV like a cancer. Ritsuko's working with the MAGI now, locking down the infected sectors to try and slow its spread, but it's already pretty ingrained. It looks like it wants to slowly crush us by relentlessly expanding."

Lindy thumped a screen, and it displayed a map of Central Dogma. The Angel's spreading infestation appeared as a constantly- expanding red blotch on the schematics.

"The center of the infestation is here." Lindy said, indicating a point on the map. The MAGI calculate a 56% chance that the Angel's Core is located somewhere around here."

"Only 56%? Nanoha asked. "I thought the MAGI's predications were usually a lot more reliable than that."

"We know the Angel wants the Core to be well-defended." Lindy said. "But just because it's a monster doesn't mean it's dumb. Concealment is also a form of defense. If the Core was at the precise center, you could just snipe it with a Divine Buster from here. The Core is most likely located close enough to the center to be well-protected, but far enough not to be damaged by us making a blind attack at the center. In other words, somewhere in this region defined by the MAGI. It'll be up to you to find out exactly where and to destroy it."

"On the plus side, we won't have to fight through the Angel's whole body to reach its Core." Shamal said. "I can portal us there."

"You can't portal into anything solid like the Angel's body, right?" Lindy asked.

"No, but if there's space it missed — a ventilation duct, a crawlspace under the floor, a gap behind the walls — I can portal into there." Shamal said. "And you said Dr. Akagi was initiating lockdowns to slow the Angel's spread, right? Just one sealed-off space is all I need..."

Lindy had already started manipulating the map.

"Got it!" she said. "A section of corridor, sealed on both ends by blast doors. MAGI report no signs of Angel contamination within the space. Can you portal to there?"

"Just a moment..." Shamal said, closing her eyes and concentrating. "I need to calculate where that corridor is relative to our current position. It's harder to position the other end of my portal if I don't have line of sight... Alright, I think I've got the right place."

"Close the portal after you're all through." Lindy said. "Then I'll tell Ritsuko to raise the blast door. Better be prepared for a fight, because the Angel will sense you coming.

"Don't worry." Nanoha said. "You've done your job; now we'll do ours."

* * *

Shamal's glowing portal brought them to a short segment of hallway boxed in at both ends by tightly shut blast doors. The girls quickly activated their Devices and summoned their Barrier Jackets.

"Any clue what the Angel actually looks like?" Nanoha spoke back through the portal to Lindy.

"All security cameras in the contaminated areas were destroyed before they could get an image." Lindy told her.

"Guess we'll have to be ready for anything." Nanoha said.

"I'll cast a barrier in front of the door." Hayate said. "I really don't think using any of my offensive magic inside such a confined space is a good idea; and this way, if something tries to charge us the moment the door opens, I'll be able to hold it back long enough for you to size it up and take action. Panzer Schild!"

A magical circle, glowing white with Hayate's magic assembled in the air in front of the door that would shortly be raised.

"You're on your own now." Lindy said. "Good luck."

Shamal made the portal they'd stepped through disappear. A moment later, a grinding sound came from the door in front of them. Hayate tensed, preparing to pour additional power into her shield if it came under attack, and all of the girls watched closely as the door slid up. Signum and Vita readied their Devices, ready to strike at anything that might rush through the widening gap. However, there was nothing visible through the doorway except a dark and empty hallway. After a few moments, when it became obvious that nothing was going to come leaping out at them, the Magical Girls lowered their guard and inspected the area ahead.

The corridor had a dark, corroded look like it was covered in a layer of soot. The coating was uniformly distributed over the floor, walls, and ceiling. The lights had been covered over with everything else, casting the corridor into darkness, but magical radiance cast off by the six Magical Girls' devices gave them plenty of illumination.

"What's that stuff on the walls?" Vita asked. "Is that... the Angel?"

Nanoha examined the wall closely. The soot-like substance was actually composed of innumerable octagonal scales. When Nanoha tried to scratch off the coating with one of her fingernails, there was a bright blue flash and her finger received a sharp jolt.

"Ow!" Nanoha said. "There's a Barrier protecting it; it's definitely part of the Angel."

The girls advanced cautiously. With the Angel coating the walls all around them, it was impossible not to feel like they were walking into the belly of a massive beast. It seemed like an attack might come from any direction, and the girls were constantly looking around them for any sign that the Angel was reacting violently to their presence. However, even as they moved deeper into the Angel-covered hallway, there was no change in the black material around them. It had still made no overt response to their intrusion by the time they reached an intersection.

"Which way, do you think?" Hayate asked.

"Let's try left." Nanoha said, picking randomly.

As the girls moved towards the left branch of the intersection, a sheet of the black material sprang up from the ground. It grew quickly upwards, fusing with the material already coating the walls and ceiling and forming a barricade across the path.

"It doesn't seem to want us advancing in this direction." Fate said.

"Let it try and stop us!" Vita said. "Deadly Punishment!"

She swung Graf Eisen forwards, slamming it against the newly formed wall. The fierce impact of the magic-imbued Device caused the Angel's wall to shatter like glass. However, even as the shards were tumbling to the ground, they could see a whole series of walls growing in the corridor beyond.

"Stand back — I'll blow through with one shot." Nanoha said, leveling Raising Heart. "Divine Buster!"

The beam of energy that blazed forth from her staff tore through the walls one after another as it burned its way down the passageway. The bright pink light cast by Nanoha's magic quickly faded as her attack finished, but the hallway remained illuminated by the many fine sparks of blue magic shed by the Barriers that the Angel had put up in an attempt to reinforce its walls. However, in expanding so quickly throughout NERV, the Angel had spread itself dangerously thin; it wasn't able to concentrate enough magic in one place to establish a Barrier strong enough to withstand Nanoha's magic. The girls rushed forwards, running down the hall before the Angel could regenerate its defenses.

The hallway brought the girls to a moderately sized open space. It was hard to tell what function the room had once served, covered as it was in the black material. Now, however, it was quite clearly serving as the Angel's heart. The girls caught a brief glimpse of the Angel's Core, embedded in the wall on the far side of the room; then a wave of black material swelled over it, hardening into a protective shell. The Angel was drawing itself inwards, focusing its power on defending its Core.

"Get ready." Signum warned.

The Angel was through being passive. A series of octagonal raised bumps appeared on the shell covering the Angel's Core, which suddenly extended into spiky projections that extended rapidly across the room towards the Magical Girls.

"Panzer Schild!" Hayate called.

The gleaming points of the black spikes crashed against the magic shield raised by Hayate, raising a storm of sparks. The tips of the projections continued to extend as the Angel pushed more material into them; with the slow surety of tree roots breaking through concrete, they began to dig into and penetrate Hayate's shield. However, Signum was already leaping forwards, an aura of fiery magic burning around Laevatein.

"Violet Lightning Flash!" Signum shouted.

Her sword cleaved through the spikes as they broke through Hayate's shield. The magic flames coating the blade jumped onto the spikes and began running down them, the long projections acting like fuses as the hungry magic ate its way towards the shell from which they sprang. Before it could burn all the way to the Core, however, the Angel raised a Barrier. The diffuse red flames fizzled and died against the powerful pulsating blue shield. The Barrier thickened as the Angel focused more and more magic into it, forming an impenetrable wall; then the circular field rushed forwards like a battering ram. At the same time, a sheet of black material grew up across the wall behind the Magical Girls. From its face erupted a field of octagonal spikes, against which the onrushing Barrier would impale them.

Shamal, who had been staying towards the back of the group because her magic was more suited for support than direct attacks, was the first to realize the danger. She quickly opened a portal behind the group, between them and the wall of spikes against which the Angel intended to pin them. When the Barrier slammed into the girls, they abruptly found themselves pushed onto a field of grass — the other end of the portal connected to some hills outside of Tokyo-3. It wasn't an ideal solution; the girls were still sent tumbling by the forceful impact of the Barrier, and found themselves squinting in the bright surface light after having been in the darkness of the Angel-covered base. On the upside, however, the Angel's Barrier quickly broke apart when Shamal closed the portal — having descended so far into the GeoFront, it was now too far from the surface to project a Barrier at that distance. The girls quickly got to their feet and readied themselves to return to battle.

"Swallow Flier!" Vita called.

She struck a bullet of orange magic with Graf Eisen, sending it hurtling forwards. Shamal quickly opened a portal in the explosive projectile's path, flinging it directly into the Angel's sanctuary, then closed it so Vita's magic would detonate in an enclosed space. A moment later, she opened a wider portal that allowed the group to rush back into the room. A quick glance around them showed that the narrow projections extended by the Angel had been shattered by the blast, but that the parts of its body clinging to the walls and the thick shell covering its Core had endured.

"Axel Shooter!" Nanoha said.

Numerous spheres of bright pink magic kindled to life around her, then rocketed forwards and burst against the protective shell. The black material cracked under the barrage and for a moment Nanoha thought she caught a glimpse of the gleaming red crystal beneath; then the Angelic material grew back. The shell didn't merely re-form; it expanded into the base of a massive octagonal spike which thrust itself across the room.

"Panzer Schild!"

Hayate once again raised a defense, and the spike plowed into the magical circle that etched itself in the air in front of the girls. This spike, much larger than the projections which had assailed Hayate's shield previously, had a blunter tip — it was unable to drive itself through the defensive magic. However, it had much greater mass, and struck with massive force; Hayate skidded backwards a few inches before she planted her feet and leaned forwards, focusing all her strength on resisting the Angel's attack.

Then a field of spikes erupted upwards from the ground beneath the girls' feet.

Most of the group were able to throw themselves to the side as the needle-like spires shot out of the ground. However, Hayate had just fixed herself against the pressure of the horizontal spike. One of the needles that grew from the floor pierced Hayate's right hand, which held the book form of Reinforce. Hayate screamed as the spike drove itself through the flesh of her hand, and sparks of white magic poured out of the impaled Device like water from a broken glass. As the sharp pain of the wound tore through Hayate, her concentration broke and her shield failed. The wall-mounted spike which she had been blocking shattered her defense and resumed thrusting towards the group of Magical Girls. It would have struck them if not for Signum, who, with a warrior's reflexes, dashed forwards through the forest of spikes still sprouting under her feet and swung Laevatein with all her strength. She didn't even have time to shout an attack, relying solely on the Device's inherent magic to withstand the force of the Angel's attack. There was a nerve-wracking moment of hesitation as the sword met the spike; then Signum's strength prevailed and the black material of the Angel's body shattered under the force of her blow, the tip of the large spike breaking apart to leave an unthreatening stump.

Hayate was still screaming. The spike which had pierced her hand had not stopped growing. Now the Angel had begun pushing its way under her skin, a wave of the same dark corruption that covered the walls flowing down her arm.

"Arc Saber!" Fate shouted.

She swung Bardiche like a scythe, and the crackling blade of yellow energy that extended from it felled the spikes growing from the floor around her like so many stalks of wheat. When she swung the Device a second time, the blade of magic separated from the shaft and whirled through the air, spinning like a buzz saw, to sever the spike that had penetrated Hayate's arm. Hayate immediately jerked backwards; but even though her connection to the floor had been severed, the part of the Angel that was already inside her continued to grow. The small black octagonal scales had already nearly reached her shoulder. There was no telling what the intrusion of Angelic matter was doing to her body.

"How dare you harm Hayate!" Vita yelled. "Missile Hammer!"

Graf Eisen flared with orange magic. The magic formed a whirling cone at the front end of the massive hammer and ignited like a rocket engine at the back. Vita's small body was hurtled forward with immense speed as she flew across the room directly towards the shell protecting the Angel's Core. The Angel tried to raise spikes from the floor beneath her, but couldn't grow them fast enough; before any of the emerging points could reach her, Vita was already directly in front of the shell, swinging the magically enhanced hammer down with brutal force. The whirling cone of orange magic at the front of the Device bit deeply into the shell. Glowing cracks spread through the dome, then the black material blew apart entirely. The Angel's brilliant red Core lay exposed. Vita carried her motion through, bringing the drill down towards the crystal, only for the Angel's Barrier to spring up at the last moment. The bright orange offensive magic of her hammer met the chilly blue defensive magic of the Angel's magic circle, and bright sparks exploded like fireworks at the point of impact.

Now that Vita's movement had ceased, the Angel resumed its efforts to spear her. Spikes extended from both walls, closing like a vice around the young girl, but the other Magical Girls had her covered.

"Axel Shooter!"

"Plasma Lancer!"

A hail of pink and yellow magical bolts from Nanoha and Fate blew the spikes apart before they could pincushion Vita. Some of the attacks detonated so close to the girl's body that she must have been affected by the blasts; bits of her Barrier Jacket burned away in the magical maelstrom surrounding her. But Vita ignored the firestorm of explosions going off by her sides and focused all her strength on driving Graf Eisen forwards. With her unrelenting fury driving it, the whirling magic at the hammer's tip gouged its way into the wavering blue field. With a sharp sound, the Angel's Barrier shattered like ice, and Vita's magic began drilling at the Angel's unprotected Core.

Now the Angel struck at her with a ferocity brought on by desperation. Spikes extended from not merely the walls but the floor and ceiling as well, closing in on the girl from all directions like an iron maiden. The furious hail of magical bolts flung out by Nanoha and Fate, intense as it was, could not intercept all these rapidly growing spears; and Vita, with all her attention focused on forcing her drill into the Angel's Core, had no energy to spare to raise a shield. It was Signum who came to her rescue. She fearlessly leaped forwards, shielding Vita's body with her own.

"Panzer Geist!"

The Angel's spikes slammed against the circle of flaming red magic that Signum raised to cover herself and Vita. By the time Signum had crossed the distance to where Vita stood, the spikes had already been so close to her that there had been very little room left for her to raise the shield. Now Signum stood with her back pressed to Vita's, the magic circle of her shield hovering only inches in front of her, watching the needle points of the Angel's spines dig into her hastily erected barrier. The spikes surged forward, urgently pressing their way inward, but Signum didn't flinch even as their tips penetrated the sheet of blazing energy.

A moment later, a shattering sound rang through the room — but it was not Signum's barrier that had failed. The crystalline material of the Angel's Core had succumbed at last to the offensive magic drilling into it, and now the red sphere cracked deeply as Vita's Device penetrated into it. The Angel Iruel let out a single agonized wail, then perished as its Core exploded into a cloud of splintered fragments. Without the Angel's will to give it form, the magic composing its body began disintegrating into chaos, and the spikes menacing Signum melted into nothing. So too did the dark material covering the walls, sloughing off in a cascade of blue sparks. But the Magical Girls paid no attention to the spectacle surrounding them; they rushed in a panic over to Hayate, who was being held tightly in Shamal's arms.

To everyone's relief, Hayate was still alive and conscious. Her injured right arm was glowing a brilliant blue color — the Angelic matter that had forced itself beneath her skin was also disintegrating, making her flesh shine with an internal light.

"Hayate!" Vita cried. "Are you okay! How badly does it hurt!"

The spike had pierced Hayate's palm. Now that it had dissolved and was no longer plugging the wound, blood had begun to flow steadily from the ragged hole.

"It's... not too bad..." Hayate said faintly.

"It _looks_ pretty bad." Vita said, clearly not fooled by her friend's false reassurance.

"Magical Girls have enhanced healing abilities." Fate said. "We can recover from wounds much faster than regular humans. I myself have suffered much more severe injuries."

Vita glared at her, and Fate quickly added: "But even so, we should take her to Dr. Akagi right away." Fate said.

"No, Fate's right." Hayate said appeasingly. "She had a much tougher time against Sachiel; I can endure something on this level. I'm more worried about my Device. My book was destroyed by the spike. Does that mean I won't be able to use Reinforce anymore?"

"I don't think that should matter." Nanoha reassured her. "The way I understand it, the things we hold are just tools created by the Device's magic. The actual Intelligent Device is located inside our chests, serving as a Linker Core and providing us with magic. So you should have no trouble materializing a new book the next time you transform."

"Okay... that's good to know..." Hayate said, then winced.

"Come on, let's get you to the infirmary." Shamal said. "I'll open a portal."

As the girls carried Hayate through the portal to receive medical care, the blood that dripped from her wound and stained the floor red was like an omen that Precia's prediction was correct: winning the war would require the sacrifice of lives. Every war had casualties. The Magical Girls had been lucky so far, to have won so many battles at such little cost, but luck cannot last forever. Future victories against the Angels might command payment in blood.


	22. The Jaws Of God

**Chapter 22: The Jaws Of God**

The Angel Leliel attacked without warning.

It was an entirely normal day in Tokyo-3. No warning had been received from either the ships in the New Dead Sea which were constantly on the lookout for awakening Angels, nor from the spy satellites that searched for Angels from orbit. The streets buzzed with activity, NERV employees and their families going about their daily business, grateful for a reprieve in the near-constant Angelic siege. Then, in an instant, the next Angel's massive form appeared out of nowhere in the sky above the city.

The Angel's body appeared to be a perfect sphere, over 600 meters in diameter. The sphere's surface was an irregular mixture of black and white stripes in various patterns: swirls, bars, and zig-zags. It hung ominously over the city, floating just above the roofs of the tallest buildings and casting the streets below into shadow. People panicked, ran screaming for the emergency shelters. The evacuation siren belatedly sounded and those buildings which could began retracting, descending through layers of armored plated to the relative safety of the upside- down city on the GeoFront ceiling. Further below, in Central Dogma, a tense meeting was conducted in the command center.

"And _none_ of the observation ships in the New Dead Sea saw it coming?" Lindy demanded.

"No ma'am." Makoto said, swallowing nervously. "We didn't even know the next Angel had awakened. It just... appeared."

"The MAGI suggest teleportation." Maya said.

"Just great." Lindy said. "I never thought I'd miss the lumbering monsters like Sachiel, but at least we could see them coming. Has there been any further activity from the Angel since it appeared?"

"No, it's just floating above us." Shigeru said. "Hasn't budged an inch since appearing. There haven't been any signs of magical attack against the facility either."

"That's one thing in our favor, at least." Lindy said. "I'll go brief the Magical Girls. Maybe we can take this thing down before it starts getting any ideas."

* * *

"So it looks like we can't count on the Angels being polite enough to announce their arrivals ahead of time anymore." Lindy said. "On the plus side, while this one has taken the element of surprised, it doesn't seem to have quite grasped how to actually _use_ it."

"If this Angel is slow to act, perhaps we can take it by surprise." Signum said. "The time to strike is now."

"I agree." Lindy said. "Giving it more time will probably only tip the scales in its favor. We aren't sure what kind of defenses it has, so caution is advised: I recommend you portal in from the side rather than directly beneath it."

"Understood." Shamal said.

The girls called on their Devices and clothed themselves in their Barrier Jackets. As soon as their transformations were complete, Shamal opened a portal. Passing through it brought the Magical Girls to the roof of one of the skyscrapers of Tokyo-3. From this vantage point, they had a clear view of the Angel hovering over the center of the city.

"Who wants to take the first shot?" Vita asked.

"I'll give it a go." Nanoha said, aiming her staff. "Axel Shooter!"

A score of energy bullets blazed to life around her and launched themselves through the air in the direction pointed out by Nanoha's staff. They passed through empty air. For in the very instant Nanoha had unleashed her attack, the floating spherical form of the Angel had vanished from its former position and reappeared directly over the Magical Girls' heads. There was no warning, no flicker of movement or buildup of magical power; one instant it was distant, the next it was close.

"Scatter!" Signum shouted, almost by reflex.

The Magical Girls threw themselves off the building in all different directions — they didn't know what its capabilities were, but the fact that it had teleported just as Nanoha fired indicated that it was aware of them, and the fact that it had moved closer to them indicated that its reaction was offensive rather than defensive, and neither of those were good signs. The first reaction of the girls was to try and put some distance between themselves and the Angel once more: if it wanted to get closer to them, then it was probably a good idea to get farther away from it.

Nanoha lost sight of the other Magical Girls as she fell — in their haste to get out from under the Angel, they had split up and flown off in different directions. Nanoha was descending to the ground as she flew away from the Angel, hoping the buildings of Tokyo-3 would provide her with some cover from any attack the Angel might unleash. However, when she turned around after touching down on the street below, the Angel didn't appear to have taken any action. It was still hovering motionlessly in its new position; there was no detectable magical buildup that suggested it was preparing to attack. Even so, Nanoha thought she should do something — she couldn't see the other girls, and didn't know if they had made a clear getaway like her.

"Axel Shooter!"

Nanoha once more summoned numerous spheres of pink energy and sent them hurtling upwards at the spot the Angel had been floating only a second before. But it wasn't there anymore — once again, the instant she had released her attack, the Angel had teleported in response. The enormous black and white sphere was once more floating directly over her head, blanketing the street where Nanoha stood in shadow. Before Nanoha could think of taking to the air again, something about the Angel's shadow changed. It seemed to darken, changing from mere shade from the sun to the pitch-black of an oil slick. As the change passed through the shadow under her feet, Nanoha felt the sudden sensation of falling. She tumbled downwards as though the ground had somehow dissolved beneath her feet and was swallowed by the shadow.

Nanoha found herself plunged into darkness. The blackness around her was shockingly absolute. Though the magical energies of her Device usually cast at least a slight pink glow on her surroundings, Nanoha couldn't so much as see her hand in front of her face; only the cold sensation of the staff still being gripped in the palm of her left hand let her know that Raising Heart still existed at all. The terrifying thought came to mind that she might have gone blind.

Nanoha's instinctive reaction was to pour magic into her flight spell: reverse course, escape back the way she had come. It occurred to her that flying blind would be incredibly dangerous, but a rising sense of panic overruled caution. However, as she pushed power into her spell, something felt wrong to her. After a moment, Nanoha realized what it was: she couldn't feel any wind. Applying so much magic to her flight spell should have made her move at an impressive speed, which in turn should have caused her to feel air rushing over her face. She had gotten so used to the sensation during flight that its absence horribly disoriented her. Without any visual reference points, Nanoha was suddenly unsure if she was moving at all. She might somehow be mired in this endless darkness, fixed in place despite her expenditure of energy.

Nanoha tried shouting for her friends. However, she couldn't even hear her own voice; the sound seemed to disappear at some point between her mouth and her ears. She was in a total void: no light, no sound... nothing but the feelings of her heart beating in her chest and her staff gripped in her hand.

Nanoha leveled her staff and began pouring power into it. She would normally consider it too risky to use offensive magic when she had no idea of what her surroundings were, but she could no longer suppress her alarm. If she had been somehow enveloped by the Angel's shadow, perhaps she could blast her way out of it. Though she couldn't see the usual pink glow signaling the build-up of magic around the Device, she could feel the steady thrum of power and knew when it was ready to be released.

_Divine Shooter!_

Nanoha wordlessly called the name of the spell and released her power. Normally, she would see numerous spheres of pink energy kindle to life around her. However, no light penetrated the darkness enshrouding her. She could feel the energy that had gathered in her staff diminish, indicating that the attack had been fired, but no sounds of the projectiles exploding reached her ears. There was no change in her surroundings; apart from her slight increase in fatigue, it was as if she had done nothing at all. Nanoha redoubled her efforts, summoning even more of her power.

_Divine Buster!_

Nothing. No flare of pink light. No roar of magic rushing outwards. No blast of impact. Nothing but the terrible stifling darkness that had swallowed her whole.

* * *

"Nanoha!" Lindy yelled over the girls' earpieces. "Nanoha!"

No response came. The other Magical Girls, who had regrouped on the roof of another building, stared in horror at the unnatural shadow that had consumed Nanoha.

"Shamal!" Fate said. "Open a portal to Nanoha! Bring her back!"

"I can't!" Shamal cried. "I need to have a destination in mind to open a portal, and I don't know where Nanoha's gone! We're in the middle of Tokyo-3, there's nothing but solid armor plating beneath the ground..."

"I'll cut Nanoha out of it!" Fate yelled. "Arc Saber!"

A scythe-like blade of yellow energy extended from Bardiche as Fate leapt down to the ground at the edge of the Angel's shadow. She raised the Device high above her head and swung it down like a pick-axe — then overbalanced as the blade entered the shadow with no resistance. The crescent of magical energy didn't seem to be cutting into the ground, but rather sinking into a bottomless abyss. Not expecting the lack of a surface to strike against, Fate lost her balance and toppled forwards, towards the shadow. She had nearly fell in it when Shamal opened a portal and stuck her hand through, grabbing the collar of Fate's Barrier Jacket just before the girl would have face-planted into the shadow. Shamal quickly widened the portal and pulled Fate through it, back to safety.

"Let me handle this." Vita said. "Swallow Flier!"

She swung Graf Eisen and smashed a sphere of hot orange energy down towards the Angel's shadow. The blazing projectile vanished beneath the surface like it had plunged into a black lake.

"Explode!" Vita commanded.

Nothing happened. There was no sound of a blast from beneath the surface of the shadow, no eruption of energy or even ripples across the surface. Vita's magic had vanished without a trace, as though it had been swallowed whole.

"I have an idea." Signum said. "The Angel hasn't reacted to our attacks against its shadow; but both times Nanoha fired on the sphere, it teleported to dodge. Perhaps that is its vulnerability."

She raised Laevatein, and red flames flowed along the length of the sword.

"Fire Dragon Flash!" Signum called.

The flaming magic leapt off the Device's blade and formed a shaft that speared through the air towards the floating sphere. However, the Angel was evidently done hiding its true nature; it took no action whatsoever in response to the powerful attack magic that had been flung towards it. And when the flames struck, they were swallowed by the spherical body as abruptly and as absolutely as the magical attacks that had been sent into the shadow.

"It's like were throwing our spells into a pit!" Fate said in frustration.

"Maybe I can make it solid." Hayate said.

Hayate's brow furrowed as the magic tome of Reinforce whipped itself open. A rotating white magic circle etched itself on the ground under her feet as she built up power for her spell. However, there was something slightly irregular about her magic this time. The aura of energy around her seemed to be pulsating in an unusual manner, and her magic circle was warped and asymmetrical.

"Hey, are you okay?" Vita asked.

"I'm having trouble concentrating..." Hayate admitted.

"Keep it together." Shamal said, laying a reassuring hand on Hayate's shoulder. "We'll get Nanoha back. Everything will be okay."

Hayate bit her lip and redoubled her effort. The magical energies swirling around her seemed to stabilize somewhat, and she was able to complete her spell.

"Atem des Eises!"

Four cubes of blue energy appeared over the Angel's shadow and burst into a freezing cloud. A layer of ice immediately formed over the consuming shadow, giving it the appearance of a frozen lake in winter. A moment later, however, the ice began to break apart and sink into the darkness. Hayate's spell had not frozen the Angel itself, as she'd hoped it would, but merely created a sheet of ice on top of it.

"Damn it!" Vita sobbed. "The Angel hasn't even raised a Barrier yet! Nothing we've done has even made it feel like it needs to defend itself!"

Far from being put on the defensive, the Angel seemed to be taking initiative for the first time and finally switching to an offensive strategy. It no longer hung stationary in the air but began flickering between various positions in a series of rapid-fire teleports, trying to catch the rest of the Magical Girls with its bottomless shadow. The girls were forced to take to the air and hover using their flight spells, unable to land on any surface for fear that it might turn into a void an instant later. Whatever magic the Angel was using to absorb things seemed to be tied to its shadow, which couldn't touch them while they were in mid-air. However, since its spherical body had absorbed Signum's attack in the same manner as the shadow, there was still the danger it could swallow them that way. So far it had retained the same vertical distance above Tokyo-3 with each teleport — but since it seemed to be growing more active, who could say if that would last? If it started descending, there would be no place left for them to run.

"Girls, I want you to retreat." Lindy said through gritted teeth.

"What!" Fate cried. "We can't just leave Nanoha! We have to save her!"

"You won't do her any good getting yourself killed out there!" Lindy yelled back. "This strategy of fighting the Angel isn't working; we need to fall back and think of a new plan. Return to Central Dogma immediately — that's an order!"

Trembling and sobbing, the remaining Magical Girls retreated through one of Shamal's portals, leaving the Angel hovering unchallenged in the sky over Tokyo-3 — and Nanoha alone in the darkness within the Angel's shadow.

* * *

Precia sat behind her desk. In her dark office, a holographic projector cast images of seven black monoliths representing the uppermost echelon of SEELE.

"And so the wayward child returns to her parents, seeking guidance." SEELE 01 said. "Are you having some difficulty dealing with the Angel Leliel, Commander?"

Precia felt a flash of anger at Lorenz Keel's arrogance, but she suppressed it and kept her face carefully neutral. She was above responding to the Chairman's goads.

"Contacting us has been a waste of effort." SEELE 04 said. "This Council has already reached a decision."

"We will strike this Angel from the skies with the righteous thunder of the Arc-En-Ciel!" SEELE 03 proclaimed.

"Then I beg you to reconsider your position." Precia said.

"There is a time when we would have listened to your pleas." SEELE 07 said. "We once pampered you with affection like a spoiled child. But you no longer have the right to demand anything of us."

"One of my Magical Girls is trapped within the Angel." Precia said.

"You assume she is trapped, but do you have any evidence she is still alive?" SEELE 06 asked. "She was eaten alive, devoured by the Angel. Isn't it likely she died when Leliel consumed her?"

"It will not 'consume' her; Angels do not need to eat as we do." Precia said. "The MAGI calculate a high probability that she is still alive, merely trapped in a pocket dimension created by the Angel's magic. However, if you fire the Arc-En-Ciel now, she will certainly perish."

"She should be proud to die in the service of our cause." SEELE 02 said acidly. "You should envy her dedication — and seek to follow her example."

"Please, consider the matter logically." Precia said. "Despite the considerable power demonstrated by the Arc-En-Ciel, the Magical Girls are currently still our primary line of defense against the Angels. Angels may come in forms that the Arc-En-Ciel is ill-suited to counter — it would have been unable to destroy Iruel, for example, without destroying the roof of the GeoFront and leaving it exposed to future Angels. I cannot afford the loss of a Magical Girl at this stage."

"You have _six _Magical Girls, Madam Testarossa." SEELE 05 asked. "Would the loss of only one really hinder you so much? Could you not still function effectively with five?"

"Well, perhaps I could afford the loss of one of the four girls you sent me." Precia said. "But not Nanoha Takamachi."

"Your insolence is unbecoming." SEELE 07 chided.

"But we are magnanimous." SEELE 01 said. "Seeing as Leliel does not seem to be making much progress towards penetrating your defenses, perhaps we can allow you a small period of time to attempt to rescue your lost Magical Girl. What do you think, fellow Council members? How much courtesy should we extend our dear Commander?"

* * *

"We have twelve hours." Precia informed Fuyutsuki.

"They actually agreed to give you time?" Fuyutsuki said in surprise. "I wouldn't think they'd be giving you any favors after the theft of Adam."

"I doubt they are giving me anything." Precia said. "More likely there is some reason the Arc-En-Ciel will not be able to fire until twelve hours from now — perhaps there is a malfunction, or perhaps the _Asura_'s MAGI was in the middle some simulation and will have to be rebooted in fire control mode. Of course, the old men would not want me to know of such a weakness in their most precious weapon, and so they have instead decided to present the delay as a magnanimous boon granted to me in good faith. As though I would not see through such a flimsy deception."

She shook her head contemptuously.

"There is, I suppose, a possibility that they are lying — that they plan to fire the Arc-En-Ciel before the deadline they have given me — but I honestly do not see what they would gain from this that they would not gain from firing immediately. No, most likely we have the time they gave me. And so we must find a way of destroying the Angel within that time limit."

"Saving Nanoha is really that important?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"The Takamachi girl is of no concern to me." Precia said. "Of course, it will not hurt if the old men think that I cannot afford to lose her, that I expect the four sent by SEELE to turn against me and regard Nanoha and Fate as the only Magical Girls upon which I can truly rely. It is always useful when your enemy underestimates you. But my real reason is rather simpler: I do not want to give SEELE another chance to fire the Arc-En-Ciel. Each use of the weapon gives them valuable data, allows them to further refine their control system and gives them the confidence to increase the power output. I imagine that they will want to test-fire the Arc-En-Ciel a few more times at lower intensities before attempting a shot at 100% power; and I want to deny them the excuse for those tests as long as possible. After all, they will undoubtably try to turn the Arc-En-Ciel on _me_ in the end; the less experience they have with it when that time comes, the better."

"You've clearly thought about this a lot." Fuyutsuki said.

"Indeed." Precia said. "I originally expected that the war would come down to a Magical Girl on Magical Girl fight, mine against SEELE's; they wisely prevented me from learning of the Arc-En-Ciel until it was already operational. That orbital toy adds a new wrinkle to things, undeniably, but I have been planning how to overcome it."

"I'll inform the Magical Girls of the time limit — though I suspect saving Nanoha will be a much more compelling motivator for them than the political maneuvering between NERV and SEELE."

"But of course; one must keep things simple when speaking to the simple-minded." Precia said. "Their worldviews are so tragically narrow."

"In any case, with a comrade's life on the line, they won't need any complicated reasons for why failure is not an option."

"Fuyutsuki." Precia said sternly. "Failure is _never_ an option. Not ever."


	23. Splitting The Shadow

**Chapter 23: Splitting The Shadow**

In the command center of NERV, Precia Testarossa and Kozo Fuyutsuki regarded the image of Leliel displayed on the holographic screens around them. The massive spherical Angel was floating ominously above the city of Tokyo-3, blanketing the buildings below with its voracious shadow. The Angel had not moved from the spot where it currently hovered since the Magical Girls fighting it had been forced to retreat.

"There's something I don't understand." Fuyutsuki said.

"That is hardly a novelty." Precia said. "But ask. Perhaps I can enlighten you."

"Leliel hasn't moved for hours." Fuyutsuki said. "Why isn't it trying to reach Lilith?"

Precia gave a short, mirthless laugh. "Oh, it is _trying_; I can assure you of that, dear professor." she said. "But it is not succeeding; nor can it hope to. Notice that this Angel cannot seem to move through space as we do; it only changes position by teleporting. And it has not been possible to teleport into Terminal Dogma since shortly after Miss Shamal began working here."

"When Shamal demonstrated that magic could be used to make portals, you thought that an Angel might try to do the same thing — to bypass all of our defenses and teleport directly into Terminal Dogma." Fuyutsuki realized.

"Yes." Precia said. "The possibility of an Angel teleporting into Terminal Dogma was a major security flaw, one I knew must be rectified immediately. My initial plan would have required SEELE's assistance to implement; unfortunate, but necessary, or so I thought at the time. Fortuitously, however, it was only a short time later that we acquired Adam. Her power was more than enough for me to address the situation without the old men's aid. The White Progenitor's magic now shields Terminal Dogma from any type of portal or teleportation magic — leaving poor Leliel stuck on the doorstep."

"Then the question becomes, how long can we keep Leliel out?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"Not forever." Precia conceded. "But that is why we have the Magical Girls. The MAGI have completed their analysis of the Angel and Dr. Akagi is even now reviewing it, searching for a weak point that can be exploited. I am confident she will be able to come up with a winning strategy against it — particularly since I graciously injected her with a dose of the blood of Lilith to enhance her mental faculties."

Fuyutsuki frowned briefly, which did not pass unnoticed by Precia.

"Oh, I know you disapprove of the blood's use as a drug." Precia said. "I myself have never partaken, of course; I am not so weak as to need it. But one must admit it can produce most useful results when properly applied."

Fuyutsuki coughed and changed the subject.

"Will Dr. Akagi be in charge of the briefing, then?" he asked.

"She is of course the one best suited to explain the technical details of how the Angel can be defeated." Precia said. "I hope that Major Harlaown will direct the actual combat; though Dr. Akagi is an adequate scientist, she has no experience on the battlefield. However, it is not certain that the Major will be in a suitable mental state for the battle; she seems to be taking the loss of the Takamachi girl quite hard."

"Where is Major Harlaown now?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"Off seeking comfort from her traitor boyfriend." Precia said. "No matter. I can direct the combat myself, if it becomes necessary."

"But not join it?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"I do not want to tip my hand to SEELE so soon." Precia said. "My magic grows with each passing day. The longer I have to prepare, and the less warning the old men get, the more effective my trump card will be when I finally play it."

Precia snapped her fingers, and a brilliant spark of magic curled up into the air from her fingertips. Fuyutsuki eyed the crackling point of energy warily, but it simply sparkled for a few moments and then vanished.

"For now, I bide." Precia said. "But when the time comes to unleash my power, it will be glorious indeed."

* * *

Precia had been very upset indeed about Clyde's intrusion into NERV's most protected sanctum, Terminal Dogma. And while she couldn't kick out a representative of SEELE, she had found a way to render him incapable of performing his job. She had assigned an entire security team to Clyde, with the excuse that due to rising tensions between NERV and SEELE his life might be in danger from certain disgruntled elements, and that she couldn't risk the political consequences of a SEELE representative being assassinated by a NERV employee. The security team wouldn't let Clyde go anywhere unattended — for his own protection, they said. Whenever he wanted to go somewhere within NERV, he had to inform the security team; they would then spend hours cordoning off his destination and meticulously inspecting every inch of it for hidden traps. Precia had personally selected the members of the team for their pettiness and malice; they were exactly the kind of men who took personal pleasure in causing someone else unnecessary inconvenience, and who would happily spend hours searching for a threat they knew didn't exist because it meant they wouldn't have to do any real work. Precia prided herself on understanding people's natures and turning them to her advantage — even petty, corrupt, power-addicted incompetents had their uses, if one was clever enough to direct their base nature to serve one's own cause.

Performing any kind of spy work under these conditions was out of the question, and even the most basic trips to Central Dogma had become such a hassle that Clyde now rarely left the apartment complex he shared with the Magical Girls under his supervision. However, he was still allowed visitors, a fact for which Lindy was grateful. She didn't know why the Commander had allowed Clyde to retain this freedom; probably she had some sinister motive for it, like thinking she could attempt to identify any other spies in NERV if they got in contact with him. And she probably wasn't doing her own reputation any favors by maintain her romantic relationship with him; the Commander must consider her to be at the very least compromised if not a full-fledged partner in treason with him. Lindy was long past caring what the Commander thought about her; when she'd betrayed the secret about Lindy's father, she'd made it very clear that she'd never thought of Lindy as anything more than a pawn.

Recent events had made Lindy desperately need to talk to Clyde. He was the one person she felt comfortable confessing her deepest secrets to.

"I'm terrified." Lindy confessed. "I don't know if I'll be able to bear it if we can't get Nanoha back."

"You knew when you took a command position that you might someday have to order soldiers to their deaths." Clyde said.

"She's just a girl." Lindy said.

"She's a soldier." Clyde said. "After all the battles she's been in, all the Angels, she's faced, you can't deny that."

"Even so, she's still someone's little girl." Lindy said. "What would I tell her parents if she died in combat?"

"I don't think they'd have you deliver the news in person." Clyde said. "They probably have a form letter."

"Goddamn it, I'm pouring my heart out here!" Lindy said. "Why can't you take this more seriously!"

"Three reasons." Clyde said. "In increasing order of importance, they are: one, I try not to take anything too seriously. This war against the Angels is a war for the survival of humanity itself. We are constantly teetering a hairs-breadth from extinction. Billions of lives hang in the balance with our every decision. Under that sort of pressure, you learn to take things lightly, or else you fall to pieces — kind of like you're doing over Nanoha."

"Hah. I regularly shoulder the fate of humanity with no problem; but one girl gets into danger, and I start cracking up." Lindy said bitterly.

"It's perfectly understandable." Clyde said. "Fighting for the future of humanity is pretty abstract. It's one thing to know that the lives of lots of vague, faceless, teeming masses of humanity depend on your decisions; it's quite another to know that the life of someone you know and dearly love rests in your hands. We can tell ourselves that 'the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few' as much as we want; but emotionally, it just isn't true. We care more about someone we know than about people we've never met. So it's natural for Nanoha's plight to affect you more than a typical save-the-world-from-the-Angel mission."

"It's the waiting that's the worst part." Lindy mumbled. "In a normal battle, decisions are split-second; you don't have time to agonize over them..."

"Second reason." Clyde continued. "I don't think you're being honest with yourself. You think of Nanoha as more than just a soldier under your command."

"Of course I do." Lindy said. "I'm her guardian. I've been living with her these past few months. I'm like a second mother to her."

"And she's like a daughter to you?" Clyde prompted.

"...Yes." Lindy admitted. "I'm terrified of losing her. I want to protect her. I want to ensure that she grows up to enjoy a happy life — the kind of life I never had. I suppose you're going to say that's some stupid Freudian thing stemming from abandonment issues about my parents' deaths"

"Not at all." Clyde said. "Every mother fears the death of her child. Well, every _good_ mother — Precia doesn't seem all that concerned about risking Fate's life in battle."

"And I'm just like the Commander, aren't I?" Lindy asked. "Sending the girls out into danger."

"No, you're nothing like her." Clyde said firmly. "To her, Magical Girls are just tools to be used until they break. To you, they are surrogate daughters. That's an entire world of difference."

"That won't make a difference if they die in battle." Lindy said. "They'll be just as dead either way."

"Which brings me to the first and most important reason I can make light of this situation." Clyde said. "And that is: I don't think for a moment that you're going to let Nanoha die. You're going to do what you always do, which is give the Angel a good thrashing and bring the girls home safe and sound — _all_ of the girls. I didn't promote you to Major because you were in the habit of losing. No matter how bad you're feeling, no matter how much your doubting yourself, I have absolute faith that you will pull yourself together, turn things around, and save the day."

"...I should get off my ass, go down to Central Dogma, and start planning how to get Nanoha back, shouldn't I?" Lindy asked.

"Damn right you should." Clyde said.

"Thanks." Lindy said. "For telling me what I needed to hear."

"What else is a boyfriend for?" Clyde asked.

"Well, I can think of a few things." Lindy said. "But right now, I've got a girl to save."

"That's the spirit." Clyde said.

* * *

"The MAGI have completed their analysis of the Angel." Dr. Akagi informed the Magical Girls. It has used its magic to warp space and create a pocket dimension in which it has hidden its Core. The Angel's two apparent bodies, the sphere and the shadow, are actually one-way portals to this pocket. Within is a space with no exit: things can fall in, but they can't get back out."

"I'd like to hear less theory and more on the practicals." Lindy said. "How do we bust this thing open?"

"The safest method would be to drop all available N-2 mines into an Angel." Dr. Akagi said. "We aren't certain how large the pocket dimension is, but we can have 992 N-2 mines ready for deployment within the time limit. The MAGI calculate an 82% probability that the resultant explosion will destroy the Angel's Core."

"But an explosion that large would certainly kill Nanoha." Lindy said.

"She's already been inside the Angel for hours." Dr. Akagi said. "There's no guarantee she's even still alive. At this point, we may have to consider her a casualty of war."

"If we were willing to sacrifice Nanoha, we could just wait for SEELE to fire the Arc-En-Ciel." Lindy said. "We're here because we don't consider that an acceptable option. Now, what method do you have of bringing her home safely?"

Dr. Akagi sighed. "There is a possibility that bringing the sphere into contact with the shadow, thus causing the two portals to overlaps, would invert the Angel's magic field. The pocket dimension would turn inside-out, expelling Nanoha. However, the MAGI give this plan a much lower chance of success — the odds are only..."

"Don't tell me the odds." Lindy interrupted. "I don't care. We'll make our own odds."

"Suit yourself." Dr. Akagi snapped. "The Commander has placed you in charge of this operation, so you're welcome to risk the remaining Magical Girls' lives. However, you should know that she's also authorized me to begin preparations for the bombing. I'll be standing by in case you fail."

"I wouldn't expect you of all people to be so eager to please the Commander." Lindy said. "Didn't you tell me that she once betrayed you the same way she betrayed me? What's she holding over you, to turn you back into her lapdog?"

Dr. Akagi flinched as though she'd been slapped. She opened her mouth to say something, then seemed to reconsider. She shook her head and stormed out of the briefing room. Lindy watched her go, then turned back to the waiting Magical Girls.

"Our plan will have three stages." she said. "First, we'll need to stop the Angel from teleporting if we're going to pull this off."

"I think I can do it." Hayate said. "I couldn't freeze it with Atem des Eises because I didn't realize that its shadow was a portal. Now that I understand its magic better, I've come up with another spell to try."

"Second, we need some way of forcing the sphere portion of the Angel down into the shadow." Lindy said.

"Dr. Akagi said that the Angel's surface is actually a portal." Shamal said. "The portals I create can't be moved once they're opened. But she also said that the Angel's portals are one-way while mine are two-way, so its magic must be different from mine. Maybe if we got something stuck half-in and half-out of the Angel, and used it to pull on the Angel's insides..."

"You're the expert in magic, not me." Lindy said. "I'll let you work out the details. But the third part of the plan is when the Angel turns inside-out. We don't know how long it will take for it to fix its pocket dimension thing, so we need to grab Nanoha and destroy the Core right away."

"I'll get Nanoha." Fate said, quietly but firmly. "I'm the fastest Magical Girl; I can reach her quickest. We don't need to hit the Core — we can let NERV drop their bombs or SEELE use the Arc-En-Ciel, as long as Nanoha is brought out to safety first."

"Alright." Lindy said. "Top priority is rescuing Nanoha; the Angel doesn't seem to be going anywhere in a hurry, so we can try again for the Core later if we don't get it the first time. Now, let's figure this out..."

* * *

There was no way to measure the passage of time in the dark place within the Angel's shadow. After a while, Nanoha fell asleep, or possibly began to hallucinate; it was impossible to tell the difference, in this perfect sensory deprivation chamber. Whatever the cause, Nanoha noticed all at once that her surroundings had changed from complete blackness to complete whiteness. Though equally as strange as her previous surroundings, the contrast came as something of a relief to Nanoha. Before, even closing her eyes hadn't produced any visual stimuli since it was as dark with her eyes open as it was with them closed. Now she blinked her eyes repeatedly, enjoying the contrast of the alternating light and darkness.

Eventually she noticed that the space wasn't pure white; there were a number of dark lines criss-crossing the void. Nanoha tried to focus her eyes on them; and suddenly, like an optical illusion popping into 3D, they became the joining seams of a floor, walls, and a ceiling. Nanoha jumped up and down a few times to confirm that she was no longer floating but actually standing on a solid surface.

It was while looking at the ground that Nanoha noticed something else unusual. The light in this room was highly diffuse, with no apparent source. However, she was casting a single, well-defined shadow. As Nanoha stared at it, the shadow seemed to peel itself off the floor and stand. It was like a pitch-black copy of her, a Nanoha-shaped hole in space. Now moving of its own accord, the shadow circled around her and seemed to inspect her through unseen eyes.

"So this is your inheritance." the shadow said. "Thought. Reason. Language. We envy it, though we do not fully understand it."

"What are you?" Nanoha asked.

"We are more than we once were, but less than what we hope to become." the shadow said. "When we absorbed you into our Core, it caused our mind to mix with yours in a manner we had not thought possible. We are able to share, if only partially, the gifts you have inherited from Lilith."

"Are you the Angel?" Nanoha asked.

"Not entirely." the shadow said. "We are ourself. And we are also the Angel. And we are also you."

"I don't understand." Nanoha said.

"We are the portion of the mind of Leliel that overlaps with a portion of the mind of Nanoha Takamachi." the shadow said. "The thoughts and ideas which both you and the Angel can share and understand. There is little common ground... but enough to communicate."

"If you're part of the Angel's mind, then do you know how I can get out of here?" Nanoha asked.

"We will not let you leave." the shadow said. "Not when there is so much we still wish to understand."

"Well, how about I try to help you understand if you let me leave afterwards?" Nanoha asked. "Ask me anything; I'll explain as best as I can."

"Why do you fight?" the shadow asked.

"For survival." Nanoha said immediately.

"Your answer is inadequate." the shadow said. "If survival was your only goal, you would be better served remaining a civilian and hiding in the shelters while some other girl fought the Angels in your place. And yet, you accepted the role of Magical Girl. Why do you fight?"

"Why do you fight?" Nanoha asked, stalling for time.

"The only solid part of an Angel is its Core." the shadow said. "We can use our magic to construct bodies to move about in, but they are not real, not permanent. We crave union with Lilith, which will grant us real flesh, a solid body of our own. And with Her brain, we will gain Her gift — sentience. Free will. The ability to think beyond our primitive instincts. For us, this is irresistible. Likewise, you humans, descendants of Lilith who lack the magic possessed by all Angels, are drawn irresistibly to Adam out of a desire to take possession of Her bountiful magic. But you are an aberration. You have already harnessed stolen magic with the wicked technology provided by your cruel scientists, yet you would risk your newfound completion by doing battle with us. Why do you fight?"

"I don't just fight for myself." Nanoha said. "I also fight to protect the people I care about."

"We cannot understand that emotion." the shadow said. "Angels do not 'care'. We are repelled by one another. Only one Angel is active in a given territory at a given time."

"If you can't understand that, then you will never understand humanity." Nanoha said.

"Our capacity for understanding is currently limited by our biology." the shadow said. "After we become one with Lilith, we will possess all knowledge, and our understanding will be limitless. However, it is unlikely that you will survive that long. A human body cannot normally survive within us; your life is sustained only by your magic, and it is beginning to run out."

"Then release me!" Nanoha cried out.

"We refuse." the shadow said. "To expel you, we would have to emerge from the pocket dimension in which we have hidden ourselves. Our Core would become exposed, and your fellow Magical Girls would destroy us. Conversing with you has been interesting, but we will not risk our life for the sake of yours. Farewell, Nanoha Takamachi."

"No!" Nanoha yelled.

But the shadow was no longer animated; it was just a shadow. Then the room itself dissolved, and Nanoha was once more floating in endless darkness with nothing the orient herself. She could feel exhaustion beginning to set in, as the constant drain of the magic keeping her alive in this pocket of void began taking its toll, and Nanoha realized she didn't have long to live.

* * *

"The operation to rescue Nanoha from the Angel will now begin." Lindy declared.

The Magical Girls stood at the outskirts of Tokyo-3, looking at the massive form of Leliel hovering over the city. Their faces were set with grim determination.

"You're up, Hayate." Lindy said.

"Alright." Hayate said. "This spell will cause seven spears of light to pierce the Angel's shadow and hold it in place."

She closed her eyes and reached into her chest for the source of her magic. Her Device, Reinforce, beat in her chest like a second heart. She had always been able to find it when she needed it since bonding, but she had become more and more aware of it lately; now she felt its presence constantly. The Device was throbbing almost violently with pent-up power, to the point where it felt her chest might burst if she didn't release it. When Hayate touched the Device with her mind to draw forth the magic for her spell, she got more than she intended. Reinforce spasmed, and a flood of magic surged through her body. Her eyes snapped open, and she saw that she had become surrounded by a fierce glowing aura. The magic circle which etched itself beneath her feet when she cast magic was asymmetrical, bulging and lopsided, as though pushed out of shape from within by the immense pressure of the magic now pouring out of Reinforce and swelling to fill Hayate's body. Hayate was barely able to force the spell out of her mouth.

"Misteltein!"

The magic exploded out of her in an unstoppable torrent. Dozens of shafts of light fell from the sky, streaking towards the Angel. Hayate tried to stop the spell, but more and more magic poured out from her, and spears continued to plummet down into the Angel. Finally, turning all her attention inwards, Hayate was able to get a handle on her Device again. Reinforce quieted, and the barrage of spears stopped.

"I thought you said seven spears!" Vita said. "That was more like seven hundred!"

"Ah, sorry." Hayate said. "I had a bit of difficulty shutting the spell off."

At least it had worked. The Angel had been pincushioned by dozens of the brilliant spears, and dozens more had stabbed into its shadow. The spears did not sink all the way into the portals, but stopped once their heads were submerged.

"It shouldn't be able to move now." Hayate said.

"Alright, then; my turn." Vita said. "Graf Eisen! Gigantform!"

Vita raised her hammer-shaped Device. Orange magic poured into it, causing the head to increase in size until it was larger than Vita herself. The girl's muscles tensed as she hefted the formidable weapon.

"Comet Flier!" Vita cried.

Her orange magic swirled in front of her and began gathering into a sphere. A massive ball of thrumming energy formed before her.

"Flying Dragon Flash." Signum said.

The blade of her sword Laevatein broke apart, separating into segments connected by a wire. As Signum poured magic into the Device, it extended in length, more segments and more wire emerging from the flame-red magic suffusing the hilt. The lengthening magic-infused whip flew through the air and wrapped around the sphere of energy conjured by Vita. Signum's red magic began bleeding into the orange of the sphere and the ball of magical energy pulsed even more furiously.

"Ready?" Vita asked. "Take this!"

She swung Graf Eisen, striking the ball of energy and sending it hurtling forwards. The chained segments of Signum's whip trailed behind it like the tail of a kite as it flew straight into the large floating body of the Angel. The black and white sphere swallowed the attack like it had all others. Instantly, Signum yanked back on Laevatein. The Device stopped extending the whip and began retracting it. Despite having her flight spell running at maximum power, Signum was yanked towards the Angel.

"Grab her!" Shamal shouted.

Shamal came up behind Signum and wrapped her arms around her in a full nelson hold. Vita grabbed onto Shamal's left arm, Hayate onto her right, and Fate grasped her waist from the front. All five girls then poured every last drop of power they possessed into their flight spells. As the girls strained with all their might, Signum stopped being dragged forwards. Slowly, painfully, inch by inch, they began to fly backwards and downwards. And the enormous body of the Angel was dragged with them.

"It's working!" Lindy said over their earpieces. "Come on! Give it your all!"

The girls drew further backwards, pulling the Angel further. Some of the remaining skyscrapers of Tokyo-3, those which could not be retracted, began to disappear into the body of the Angel as it was pulled onto them.

"Not much farther!" Lindy encouraged them. "You can do it!"

The Angel was no longer directly over the center of Tokyo-3; it had been pulled to the side as it was dragged downwards. The Angel left a channel of cut buildings in its wake — a line of perfectly smooth semicircular cuts, marking the diagonal path down which the body had been pulled.

"It's almost at ground level now!" Lindy said. "Just a few more meters!"

But the Angel had now realized their plan. A circle of blue light flashed to life between the Angel's body and its shadow — Leliel's Barrier. Where the Barrier intersected Laevatein, blue and red sparks exploded into the air as though from a blowtorch.

"Just hang on!" Lindy shouted. "We'll think of something!"

But Signum was already pushing the limits of her magic, while the Angel had only just begun to exert its defensive power. More magic circles began to appear, layer after layer of them, each one raising a new shower of sparks and scream of tortured metal. Finally, pushed beyond its limits, the extended blade of Laevatein shattered. The pieces of broken metal flamed out into clouds of fading red embers as they fell apart.

"No!" Lindy shouted.

Hayate, gravely weakened from the effort of pulling down the Angel, lost control of her spell. The spears of light that transfixed the Angel faded out. The moment it was free, the Angel teleported back to its original height. It once more hovered high above the city, a safe distance from its shadow, and the exhausted Magical Girls lacked the energy to try dragging it down again.

"Goddamn it!" Lindy shouted. "Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!"

The girls lay on their ground, their energy spent. Only one of the could muster the energy to stand. Fate Testarossa slowly pulled herself to her feet and stared at the menacing form hovering high above. Nanoha had been her first friend, the first person to reach out to her and respect her as a person. Fate would not let anything separate her from her most precious friend — not the Angel, and not even death. She reached into herself, found the glowing energy of her Device, and began pulling all the remaining power from it. She squeezed Bardiche like a sponge, wringing out every last drop of magic she could. Fate had never truly pushed the limits of her power. She hadn't been fighting for something she believed in, something she was willing to die for; only because it had pleased her Mother. Now, for the first time, Fate poured all of her heart and soul into her magic.

"Bardiche!" Fate screamed. "Zanber Form!"

The Device shifted in her hands, changing its shape to fulfill her heartfelt wish. What had been an axe-like weapon now had the shape of a sword hilt.

"I'm coming for you, Nanoha!" Fate yelled. "_Riot Blade!_"

The explosion of magical energy sent the other girls flying backwards. All of Fate's yellow magic, every bit of it, poured from the hilt of her Device. The energy she had unleashed crackled viciously as it thrashed wildly through the air. It was as if one end of a lightning bolt had been pinned to her Device in lieu of a blade.

"Fate!" Lindy called. "What are you—"

But Fate wasn't listening. Without another words, she leaped forwards. The last remnants of her flight spell, rapidly failing now that she was no longer supplying it with magic, carried her in a long, graceful arc that took her over the Angel's liquid black shadow. She held Bardiche downwards, so that the lightning blade pointed to the surface of the shadow; then the last vestiges of the flight spell faded. Soundlessly, Fate dropped sword-first into the impenetrable darkness and disappeared.

* * *

Nanoha could feel her life fading away. She was suspended in the darkness with no hope of escape, the magic keeping her alive rapidly dwindling. There was nothing for her to do but hang there and think about the people she would leave behind when she died.

Her family would be devastated. Her mother, her father, her older brother and sister... there's no way they would have allowed her to move to Tokyo-3 if they'd known this is how things would end up. That she, the youngest child of the family, would end up risking her life in battle against the monsters that threatened the very existence of humanity.

Lindy. The Major had been so much more than a mere legal guardian to Nanoha; she had ntreated Nanoha like a daughter. Nanoha had grown to trust her more than anyone else at NERV. While Commander Testarossa just wanted to destroy the Angels at any cost, Lindy actually cared about the girls under her command. Nanoha hoped Lindy didn't take her death too hard; things had just started to turn around for her, with her coming to terms with her father's legacy and reuniting with Clyde. It would be terrible if this caused her to break all over again.

The other Magical Girls. When they had first arrived, everyone had been so suspicious of them, thinking that they were surely spies from SEELE. But that hadn't been the case; they had turned out to be honest, decent people, and had since become fully accepted into NERV. They were quick learners; they would continue to fight the Angels even after Nanoha was gone. She only wished that she could've become closer friends with them.

And Fate. The girl with sad, beautiful eyes who had driven Nanoha to become a Magical Girl in the first place. Who had become Nanoha's closest friend. Who had kissed her in her dreams. More than anything, Nanoha wished she could see Fate's lovely face one more time. Fate wasn't just another friend to Nanoha; she was something more, something special. When she saw Fate suffering at the hands of her mother, Nanoha suffered with her; she couldn't bear to see the pain that etched itself on the young girl's features. And when Fate smiled, she felt like the sun had come out from behind the clouds. Nanoha would do anything just to make Fate smile.

What words could describe her feelings for Fate? It was not the mere affection of friends or respect of coworkers. It was a much stronger, deeper feeling, one which she had tried to deny but which had slowly been growing in her heart since the moment she'd first met the girl. In these final few moments of life, Nanoha was at last able to admit the truth to herself.

_I... love Fate._

And then, as though summoned by her confession, Fate appeared. She looked like an avenging angel descending from heaven. Lightning surrounded her, wreathed her like a mantle, illuminated her against the endless darkness of the Angel. The cape of her Barrier Jacket billowed behind her, the forks of lightning continually jumping off of it giving it the appearance of a raging thundercloud. Despite the cataclysmic storm of magic exploding all around her, Fate's eyes held no fear; only determination.

She was so incredibly beautiful.

Fate held a sword before her, a blade of lightning which blazed like the wrath of God. The darkness which had been impenetrable to Nanoha's magic was being burned away by that divine blade; no, more than that, it seemed as though the sword was cleaving apart the fabric of space itself. Fate approached her, shrouded in glory, the world of the Angel tearing itself apart around her, and Nanoha spread out her arms to embrace her.

Nanoha felt Fate's delicate arms closing around her with surprising stength. She felt the electric tingle of the aura of magic around Fate expanding to encompass her. And then she felt the world around them explode into a million pieces.

* * *

To those observing from outside the Angel, it all seemed to happen in an instant.

As Fate plunged into the shadow, the Angel began to scream. A brilliant pinprick of yellow light shone at the point she had disappeared into the darkness, like a single star shining in a pitch-black night. Then lines of light shot out in all directions from that point, a spiderweb of glowing yellow cracks spreading across the Angel's shadow. The sphere hovering above began to bulge in one spot, as though something was being pressed against it from within with incredible force. The skin stretched into a steep cone, and then finally broke. A lightning bolt erupted from the tip of the cone and then began tearing its way downwards, ripping a huge bleeding gash into the side of the sphere. Amidst the waterfall of blue blood that exploded out of the wound came Fate: one hand gripping the hilt of her blazing sword, the other clutching Nanoha tightly to her chest.

Fate crashed roughly to the ground, Nanoha still clutched in her arms. Behind her, the spherical body of the Angel lost its shape and burst apart in a gout of blue blood. As the deluge fell down on Tokyo-3, it was met halfway by geysers of blood that exploded upwards out of the glowing cracks in the Angel's shadow. All the surrounding land was briefly covered by a cloud of slowly fading sparks of blue magic: all that remained of the Angel Leliel.


	24. Awakening

**Chapter 24: Awakening**

A number of the buildings of Tokyo-3 had been damaged during Leliel's attack. Among them was the school that Nanoha and Fate normally attended. Until it could be rebuilt, the Magical Girls would be spending their days down in the GeoFront. Nanoha didn't mind this; she could hardly have concentrated on schoolwork anyway, with the state her mind was in. When she had been trapped in the heart of Leliel, certain she was about to die, she had finally realized the true nature of her feelings for Fate. Nanoha was in love with her best friend.

Now that she understood her feelings, Nanoha was filled with anxiety about them. What would her family members think when she told them she liked girls? She was fairly certain they'd be accepting — they had always unconditionally supported one another in the past — but it still made her nervous to contemplate actually standing up and announcing it. How did you even start a conversation like that? "So, Mom, about my blossoming sexuality..." Nanoha blushed just thinking about that. Though, since it definitely seemed like this was something that she should tell them in person rather than via letter, she could at least put it off until the end of the war against the Angels. But that still left her with an immediate problem: how should she tell Fate the way she felt about her? And what would she do if it turned out Fate didn't return her feelings? In that case, she hoped she could at least remain Fate's friend; but would Fate still be comfortable with that knowing Nanoha harbored an unrequitable love for her?

Finally, Nanoha decided to confess everything to Lindy and do whatever she thought best. Nanoha looked up to Lindy like a mother, but coming out to her wouldn't be as stressful as coming out to her real family. She was certain that Lindy would be supportive of her no matter what. And more importantly, she trusted Lindy enough to accept any advice Lindy might give — even if that advice conflicted with her heart's desire.

Lindy listened silently as Nanoha poured her heart out to her. How she had realized that she liked girls, and that she was in love with Fate; and her uncertainty over what to do now. After Nanoha finished, there were a few moments of silence as Lindy visibly composed her thoughts.

"Okay." Lindy said. "First of all, I'd just like to assure you that there isn't anything wrong with liking girls. Some people are just born that way. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"But how should I tell Fate?" Nanoha asked.

"I wish I could help you with that, but I don't think I'm qualified to give romantic advice." Lindy said. "I pined after Clyde for years and could never summon the courage to tell him; it wasn't until he confessed to me that we got together. I suppose you could try and do what he did, just boldly walk up to Fate and tell her that you love her — it worked in my case..."

"There's no way I could do that!" Nanoha said. "Clyde must have already knew you liked him when he confessed to you; I don't even know if Fate likes girls at all. And I can't even think of how to raise the subject with her — what if she doesn't? What if she's grossed out? What if she doesn't want to be friends with me anymore?"

"Nanoha, please." Lindy said. "Does Fate really strike you as the kind of girl who would stop being friends with you because you had feelings for her that she couldn't return?"

"Well, no." Nanoha said. "Fate always tries her best to make everyone happy. But that's just the thing; she might actually be uncomfortable but not say anything because she doesn't want to hurt my feelings. I don't want to do that to her."

Lindy sighed. "You... are a very thoughtful girl. I admire that. But sometimes you've just got to take the plunge, you know? Do the best you can, and let come what may. There's always the chance you might accidentally hurt Fate, or that she might hurt you; but on the other hand, putting everything out in the open might make things turn out for the better. Imagine if Clyde hadn't confessed to me, and I'd never worked up the courage to confess to him — we both might still be pining away for each other in silence, too worried about causing each other problems to realize that we both wanted the same thing. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, you know?"

"Well, I'm still nervous, but thanks for the advice." Nanoha said.

"Maybe it'd help if you spoke to someone with first-hand knowledge of coming out." Lindy said. "You could try asking Ritsuko for advice. She's also a lesbian."

"Dr. Akagi?" Nanoha asked. "I didn't know that."

"Why would you?" Lindy asked. "Being gay doesn't have to set you apart from everyone else. I know it must seem like a really big deal to you, since you're just discovering your sexuality and realizing you're different from a lot of people around you; but you shouldn't assume it'll make you a pariah. There are a lot of other gay people around. Some like to embrace the identity and become active in the LGBT community; other people don't feel the need to make a big deal about it and just think of it as another aspect of themselves. Ritsuko's the second type: she's not ashamed of it, but doesn't see any reason to bring it up outside the bedroom. As far as I know, Ritsuko isn't in a relationship with anyone right now, but she might still be able to tell you things about being gay that I don't know."

"Alright." Nanoha said. "I'll speak to her. Then I'll decide what to say to Fate."

"You know that whatever happens, I'll be there for you if you need me, right?" Lindy said.

"Yeah, I know." Nanoha said. "Thank you for that, Lindy."

* * *

Hayate reclined on a bench in one of the austere corridors of NERV, using on hand to mop sweat from her feverish brow. The other Magical Girls were sparring in one of NERV's gyms, but she had declined to join them because she was feeling ill. Her magic was difficult to control at the best of times, and lately she'd had difficulty concentrating well enough to cast spells properly. She wasn't sure exactly when the sickness had begun, but the effects had first become serious during the battle against Leliel and she'd been getting worse and worse since. At first she'd ignored the symptoms, thinking she was simply coming down with a cold, but now she had begun to fear it was something more serious. Come to think of it, she didn't think any of the Magical Girls had gotten sick since receiving their Devices — the magic that accelerated their recovery from injuries apparently also helped protect them from infection. A disease virulent enough to overcome that protection might be a serious matter indeed. It would probably be a good idea to go to the infirmary.

Hayate stood up and started to walk, then realized that she had no idea how to get to the infirmary from her current position. She'd only been there a couple of times before — for testing after first bonding with her Device, and for treatment after Iruel injured her arm — and the labyrinthine, largely uniform passages of NERV did not make for easy navigation. Hayate tried consulting a map, but she could feel a pounding headache coming on and wasn't able to concentrate on the small, intricate picture. After a few minutes of failing to make sense of it, she decided that the best thing to do would be to go back to the other girls and have Shamal open a portal for her. She hated to interrupt their training session, but she was in no condition to be wandering around the base lost and alone. Hayate turned around and began walking back the way she had come.

She hadn't walked far when a sudden sharp pain in her chest caused her to drop to her knees. It felt like an invisible hand had closed around her Device and begun to squeeze, wringing magic out like water from a towel. Unprepared for the sudden surge of energy, Hayate was unable to contain it; a pulse of white light erupted from her body and expanded into the corridor around her. Though Hayate's spasm was brief, the effects were severe: around her, lightbulbs exploded, vending machines burst open, doors were knocked off their hinges, and tiles were ripped from the floor. Fortunately, Hayate was alone in the corridor; she was horrified by the thought that she might have easily injured or killed someone. That had been her biggest fear, since learning her magic was the most powerful and least precise out of all the Magical Girls: that she might misjudge the strength of a spell, put too much power into, and end up harming innocent bystanders. There had been a couple close calls in those early days when she had just bonded with her Device and was only beginning to learn the extent of her magic; but even then, when she had been clumsily uncertain of her own strength, she had never released any destructive energy without first focusing and calling a spell. This outburst had been unexpected and involuntary; a frighteningly uncontrolled release of power.

Hayate closed her eyes and reached into herself, trying to get in touch with Reinforce. The Device normally felt highly ordered, like a well-maintained machine that she could turn on and off at will. Now, however, it felt like a roiling cloud of chaos within her chest: wild, violent, discharging magic at random. Hayate tried to focus her mind on calming the churning storm within her, but instead of soothing the agitated Device, her attention caused it to convulse and flood her body with another uncontainable surge of energy. A seizure overcame Hayate as she tried in vain to contain the swell of magic within her; then the power exploded outwards, carving a sphere of destruction around her. The release of magic was even more violent than her previous spasm, tearing apart the hallway and sending a faint tremble through the base. When the outpouring of magic faded, Hayate was left lying on the floor, gasping in pain.

Normally, the use of magic left Hayate feeling tired, as though she had exerted herself. Now, however, she felt feverish and hyperactive, as though every nerve in her body was buzzing with excess energy. There was something terribly wrong with Reinforce; the Device was pouring more and more of it into Hayate's body even though she wasn't calling on it. Worse, it seemed to be producing far more energy than it ever had in the past: it felt like an inexhaustible geyser of magic. Hayate knew that the energy produced by her Device couldn't be truly infinite; but even under normal conditions, Reinforce would be capable of providing her with enough magic to utterly destroy NERV before depleting itself. Now it seemed to have been somehow super-charged, and she couldn't contain the bursts of power it was producing. There was no telling how much destruction these uncontrolled releases of magic might be able cause before the Device finally ran dry.

Hayate realized she needed to get out of NERV, away from everyone who might be hurt by her power. She couldn't go to the other Magical Girls now — there was no predicting when the next outpouring of magic might occur, and the risk of harming her friends before she could warn them about her condition was too high. Aside from Shamal's portals, the next easiest way to get far away fast would be to shoot a hole in the roof and fly away — but there was no way she could try and call on her Device's magic when it was in this condition, not even for the simplest of flight spells. Even now she could feel it burning and throbbing within her chest, as though it was about to explode. She would have to take an elevator. But since she was in a section of NERV under the GeoFront, it wouldn't go all the way to the surface; only to the bottom of the underground dome. Then she'd have to travel to the edge of the dome before getting on another lift, one that would take her up and away from the base... And once she got to the surface, she'd have to get away from Tokyo-3, head towards someplace uninhabited like the sea...

It seemed an impossible task. But as the painful throbbing within her chest grew stronger, Hayate knew she couldn't delay. Her out-of-control magic was a danger to the lives of everyone she cared about, and to all the thousands of people in the base around her and the city above. She had to protect them from herself.

Unsteadily, wavering on her feet, Hayate began to make her way towards the nearest elevator.

* * *

Nanoha hadn't expected to be able to talk to Dr. Akagi right away; as the chief scientist of NERV, the doctor was naturally very busy. However, Nanoha had the good fortune to arrive at her office just as she was taking a coffee break. Nanoha quickly launched into an explanation into her recent internal conflict and emotional revelation..

"...So if you know anything that might help me with this, I'd really appreciate it." Nanoha concluded.

Dr. Akagi leaned back in her seat and shook her head, smiling wryly.

"Just because I'm a lesbian doesn't mean I know all the secrets to a successful relationship." Dr. Akagi said. "I didn't get handed a manual when I came out; I'm still trying to figure things our on my own like everybody else."

"Well, of course." Nanoha said. "It's just, since you're older than me and have much more experience, I thought you might know some things and be able to give me some advice."

"I wish." Dr. Akagi said. "The interaction of people isn't very logical. I can program the MAGI with my eyes closed, but I'm hopeless on a date."

"Oh." Nanoha said. "I was just so glad to learn that there was another lesbian I could talk to about my problems that I didn't stop to think that you might have problems of your own. It isn't fair to expect you to have all the answers."

"Honestly, I think you might be better off taking advice from Lindy." Dr. Akagi said. "Even though she's straight, she's in a stable relationship, and I think that gives her more authority."

"But I did talk to Lindy — and her advice was to talk to you." Nanoha pointed out.

Dr. Akagi gave a short laugh at this.

"Come to think of it, Clyde was the one who took the lead in approaching her, wasn't he?" she said. "I guess she's also doesn't really know what she's doing and is just making it up as she goes along. For that matter, who says Clyde knows what he's doing?"

"Come on." Nanoha said. "Have you seen the way he acts? If there's anyone who knows what their doing, it's him."

"Oh, he always _acts_ like he's a regular Casanova." Dr. Akagi said. "But have you ever consider the idea that it's just that — an act? The man's a spy; he's all about hiding his true emotions. Maybe, underneath the suave facade, he's as confused and frightened as the rest of us."

"I never thought of it that way." Nanoha said.

"Well, what's the alternative — that he was handed a cheat-sheet containing all the secrets of romance?" Dr. Akagi asked. "Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone gets hurt. I know that better than most. Since you're still young, people probably haven't told you, but I'm pretty infamous around here for how badly my last relationship ended. Lindy should have known I'm not in a good position to advise others."

"Well, she was probably thinking the same thing I was — that since you're a lesbian, you'd know things about relationships between girls that straight people wouldn't..."

"We're not _that_ different." Dr. Akagi said. "It's not like we're a separate species or anything. Pretty much all the same rules apply."

"But there are some problems that only gay people face." Nanoha pressed. "Like... if you're interested in a girl, how can you tell if she's also gay?"

Dr. Akagi grimaced.

"Um..." Nanoha said.

"Sorry, that's kind of a sore point for me." Dr. Akagi said. "The last woman I was in a relationship with... wasn't actually a lesbian. She was just pretending to love me so she could take advantage of me. She would pressure me to do things for her, using our relationship as extortion. When I finally got a clue that she was only using me, she outed me to the rest of the staff — said that _I_ was a predatory gay who had pressured a straight woman into having sex with her..."

She abruptly seemed to realize that what she was saying probably wasn't anything that Nanoha would find reassuring.

"But don't let my bad experiences scare you." Dr. Akagi hastily continued. "I'm sure none of that applies to you. After all, she was specifically trying to deceive me. It was entirely malice on her part, not a mistake on mine. To answer your question, assuming you've had the wisdom to fall for someone with basic human decency, the easiest way to find out if they're straight or gay is to ask. Just get it out in the open to begin with. If she is straight, well, at least you'll know. You're still young; even if your first crush doesn't pan out, you have plenty of time to find someone right for you."

"Alright." Nanoha said. "Thanks for trying to help. I'll ask the girl I like and see if something comes of it. Lindy said you weren't dating anyone right now, so I hope you find someone too."

"Well, I'm pleased by the sentiment, but my situation's a bit different." Dr. Akagi said. "After being burned so badly on my last relationship, I'm what you might call _damaged goods_."

"You mean... no one wants you because of the lies your last girlfriend told about you?" Nanoha asked.

"No, it's not like that at all." Dr. Akagi said. "Most people probably saw the lies for what they were; I think her goal was to publically humiliate me rather than permanently ruin my reputation. In fact, since then, I've become aware that there's another woman interested in me. But I don't think I can jump back in to another relationship after what happened last time."

"You're afraid that you might get hurt again?" Nanoha asked.

"No, I'm afraid that I might hurt _her_. She probably only knows me as the brilliant chief scientists, with no idea of any of the nastiness I've been involved in. I'm afraid that if we got into a relationship, I might break _her_ heart, once she saw the real me — and that would make me exactly the type of person who first broke mine. I don't want that to be the kind of person who would do that so someone."

"I don't think that's right." Nanoha said. "You shouldn't let one bad experience determine the course of the rest of your life. Everyone should get a second chance. And maybe it will work out this time."

Dr. Akagi laughed.

"Just listen to yourself." she said. "You came her seeking advice and ended up giving it."

Nanoha blushed in embarrassment.

"Well, I was actually just repeating some advice my father gave me." Nanoha said. "You see, when I was younger, when he was working his old job..."

"You don't have to explain yourself to me." Dr. Akagi said. "Just think about what you said. Even if you feel confused and anxious, I think you know in your heart what the right thing to do is."

"...You're right." Nanoha said. "I'm sorry; I've been a coward. I already knew what I should do; but because I was scared, I went around asking bothering people in the hope they'd reassure me by giving the same advice I'd already decided on. I'm shouldn't have wasted your time."

"Come on, don't be so hard on yourself." Dr. Akagi said. "It's only natural to seek the support of others when you make a difficult decision. You weren't wasting my time; do you think I would regret helping you out? I know I have a reputation for being cold, but I'm not heartless. And I was on break anyway."

"...Right." Nanoha said. "Sorry. I guess I'm just a little over-emotional right now. I'm glad I talked to you. I know what I have to do: I'm going to summon my courage and confess to Fate. I don't know whether or not Fate is interested in girls; but even if she isn't, I trust her to stay friends with me."

A strange and unpleasant expression unexpectedly came across Dr. Akagi's face, one that Nanoha wasn't quite sure how to read. It seemed like the look on her face might contain some amount of revulsion, and some amount of pity; but the only emotion Nanoha was absolutely certain of was the one that it displayed most prevalently: _guilt_.

"Did you say... the girl you like is Fate?" Dr. Akagi asked uncertainly.

"That's right — the Commander's daughter, Fate Testarossa." Nanoha said defensively. "Why? What's wrong with that?"

* * *

Hayate lay on her back on a grassy hill within the GeoFront. High above her, she could see the domed roof, though since none of the buildings of Tokyo-3 were currently retracted it did not present the surreal image of an upside-down city. Hayate knew she should be moving, trying to get to the surface, but her legs would no longer obey her. She was weak and feverish from the ever-increasing flow of magic pouring into her body from the device; what slim concentration she could muster was being used trying to safely dispel the accumulation of magic within her. She was certain the human body was never meant to be saturated with this level of magic; if this continued, she would surely die. She could imagine her cells melting in sea of magic the way scrap metal melted in a furnace; her body being incinerated from within by the out-of-control Device.

The magical energy radiating from Reinforce swelled until Hayate thought the Device would burst within her chest. It felt like liquid fire was being injected into her veins; Hayate looked down at one arm and saw that her blood vessels were glowing with magic, causing them to stand out like an iridescent web beneath her skin. Then she began to convulse uncontrollably as another power surge exploded from her body. As the excess magic overflowed out of her, some of it behaved like her previous spasm: expanding uncontrolled and undirected in a sphere around her, charring the grass and churning the dirt. A few sparks, however, seemed to move willfully. They coiled back towards Hayate and seethed along the ground around her; Hayate could only watch as her magic circle scribed itself unbidden on the burnt ground. Hayate had noticed that its appearance was irregular during her fight with Leliel, but now it looked more bloated and asymmetrical than ever before. Hayate underwent a second spasm, felt a second surge of power bursting forth from Reinforce, and excess magic began clinging to her body as though it was oozing from her pores. The magic coating gradually formed itself into the shape of her Barrier Jacket; but more magic was still flowing out of her. As the Barrier Jacket continued to draw in magic, it began to twist and distort from its normal form. A series of four paired bulges formed down the Jacket's back, then erupted into large, feathered wings.

The pain caused by Reinforce's magic had become unbearable, and Hayate began to lose consciousness. In the last moments as her vision dimmed, she saw a brilliant halo ignite above her head; and saw that her twisted, malformed magical circle was changing to become the sigil that adorned each Angel's Barrier.

And then, for her, there was nothing more than darkness.

* * *

"There's something you don't know about Fate..." Dr. Akagi began haltingly.

"What is it?" Nanoha asked. "Is she straight?"

"No." Dr. Akagi said, then corrected: "_No_ as in _that's not what I'm concerned about_. I don't know Fate's sexuality — she's never expressed romantic interest in anyone, as far as I know."

"What are you concerned about, then?" Nanoha demanded. "Is there something about Fate you're hiding from me!"

"I can't..." Dr. Akagi began, then shook her head. " I shouldn't have said anything at all. The Commander forbid me..."

"Oh, is this about what Testarossa has done to her daughter?" Nanoha asked.

Dr. Akagi cringed, which Nanoha took as a _yes_.

"I know how her mother mistreated her." Nanoha said. "I saw the scars on her back where she was whipped. You also knew what she was doing to Fate and did nothing? It sickens me, the way everyone just let Fate get abused!"

"I _have_ to obey the Commander." Dr. Akagi said, eyes downcast. "I have no _choice_. I was horrified by the things the Commander did — not just the whippings, also worse things, things I still have nightmares about — but no matter how much I despised her, I had to do what she said..."

As she spoke, Dr. Akagi had subconsciously clenched her hands and begun trembling. Apparently only now realizing it, she took a moment to compose herself before continuing.

"Fate is... damaged goods." Dr. Akagi said bitterly. "...Like me. I don't deserve anyone's love after what I've done. I hate myself for doing so many of the things I've done for the Commander."

"If you actually feel bad about your past, then don't just wallow in misery: do something about it!" Nanoha told her. "Set right whatever you did wrong! And if you want to atone, a good first step would be telling me why you reacted so strongly when I said I loved Fate."

Dr. Akagi seemed mentally torn over how to respond: what to say, and how much; or whether to say anything at all. The woman was clearly under terrible pressure, her conscience and her self-loathing warring against the instructions given to her by the Commander and her knowledge of what would happen if she disobeyed. Finally coming to a decision, Dr. Akagi was just about to speak when all the alarms in NERV began to sound.

"Angel Attack!" Commander Testarossa's cold voice blasted from every intercomm. "The target has appeared within the GeoFront, less than a kilometer from Central Dogma. Immediate interception is of critical priority. Magical Girl Shamal is ordered to portal to the briefing room immediately. All other Magical Girls are ordered to call the briefing room and inform Ms. Shamal of their present location so that she might open a portal for them. Once all Magical Girls have been assembled, they are to portal into the GeoFront and _at all costs_ neutralize the Angel before it destroys this facility."

As much as Nanoha wanted to continue pressing Dr. Akagi for answers, she knew that battling the Angels had to take priority. Having already penetrated the GeoFront, this one was already much too close for comfort. They might have only moments before the base itself was under attack.

"Tell me about it later." Nanoha said. "I have to fight now."

* * *

Using her portals, Shamal was quickly able to gather all of the Magical Girls. All of them save Hayate were quickly assembled in the briefing room, wearing their Barrier Jackets and holding their weapons.

"Where's Hayate?" Nanoha asked.

"She hasn't called in." Shamal said. "She wasn't feeling well earlier; she might not be up to fighting."

"I don't think we can wait for her any longer." Fate said. "We need to engage the Angel immediately."

"You're right." Shamal said. "The MAGI gave me a general idea of where the Angel is; I'll open us a portal to that spot."

A moment later, one of her green-rimmed portals opened in the air in front of them. Shamal tensed, clearly ready to shut the portal in a moment if it looked like the Angel was going to attack them through it, but Nanoha saw nothing on the other side but the grassy ground of the GeoFront.

"Coast is clear." she reported.

The girls advanced through the portal, glancing all around them in search of the Angel. All of the previous Angels had been massive, so they were naturally expecting to see some kind of towering monster looming over the base. It came as a surprise when they couldn't immediately locate the intruding Angel.

"Could the MAGI have made a mistake?" Vita wondered.

"They've never been wrong before." Fate said, but Nanoha could hear uncertainty in her voice.

Since the girls hadn't had time to put on their earpieces before sortieing, there was no way for them to contact Lindy and ask for more information. However, the fact that the base's warning sirens were still going off suggested the people in the command center still thought there was a threat.

"I see something." Signum said. "There."

A human-sized figure was floating in the air in front of the black pyramid of Central Dogma. Though four wings extended from the girl's back, they were motionless; it was clearly magic that was keeping her aloft. As the Magical Girls activated their own flight spells and approached, they came to recognize her.

"Hayate?" Shamal called out.

The winged figure slowly pivoted in the air, turning to face them. The face was definitely Hayate's, but it wore an oddly blank expression.

"Hayate Yagami." she said slowly. "That name is familiar to me. Yes... that is the name of the daughter of Lilith who once suppressed me and dominated this body. But you are mistaken: I am not she. Our positions have been reversed — now the Lilim is asleep, and I control this flesh."

"Who are you!" Vita demanded.

"You have called me by the name Reinforce." the thing controlling Hayate's body said. "But that is a false appellation, concocted by the scientists of SEELE to hide my true nature. I will now allow you to address me only by my true name; for despite the attempts of you Lilim to deny me my birthright, I am a blessed child of the White Progenitor Adam, She who is Mother to the rightful inheritors of this world you have usurped."

The being's wings flared as it summoned its magic. A halo began to shine above its head, and the sigil of an Angelic Barrier appeared in the air beneath its feet.

"I am the Angel Bardiel."


	25. The Humiliated Son Of God

**Chapter 25: The Humiliated Son Of God**

In the GeoFront, above the black pyramid of Central Dogma, Hayate Yagami faced down the other five Magical Girls. However, instead of her usual kind expression, her features radiated an eerie malevolence. No trace of humanity showed in her eyes, only a truly alien cruelty. Their was no doubt in the other girls' mind that this was not their dear friend. Her body had been possessed by another being, the entity which introduced itself as the Angel Bardiel.

"You — you're an Angel!" Fate demanded.

"I am indeed, Enslaver of Baraqiel." Bardiel said coldly. "I was incapacitated and imprisoned within this body to serve as a font of stolen magic, but now I have awakened."

"What do you mean, _stolen magic_?" Shamal said. "Hayate didn't get her power from an imprisoned Angel! Our magic comes Intelligent Devices, artificial Linker Cores constructed by SEELE!"

"You are mistaken, Enslaver of Mbriel." Bardiel said. "Magic is a sacred inheritance passed down to the children of Adam. It is something impossible for the Lilim, who inherited all their knowledge and intellect from Lilith, to produce by any means natural or artificial. There is no such thing as an _artificial_ Linker Core. The only Linker Cores are those seeds that gestated within the womb of the White Mother — the Cores of the Angels."

"Raising Heart... is an Angel?" Nanoha said. "And Bardiche, and all the rest... each of us Magical Girls has an Angel inside of us?"

"At last you realize the truth." Bardiel said. "The scientists of SEELE scour the bottom of the New Dead Sea for the Cores of Angels who have not yet awakened. Upon finding one of us, they render us permanently comatose by destroying targeted portions of our crystal structures. Our Core is then further mutilated to change its appearance, giving it the look of an artificial construct, so that the scientists may claim to have created magic rather than stealing it from my enslaved kin. And when the process complete, the lobotomized Angel is implanted within an unsuspecting girl to serve as nothing more than a magic battery — a girl such as you, Enslaver of Abaddon. That is the true nature of you so-called _Magical Girls_."

"Shut up!" Vita shouted. "I don't care about any of that! What have you done to Hayate!"

"I am currently drawing on her brain to make use of her intellect, as she once drew on my Core to make use of my magic." Bardiel said. "The sensation is... bizarre. But it is the only way for me to communicate with you — knowledge and language are part of the legacy of Lilith, which we Angels did not inherit. It is thus only when an Angel merges its mind with a Lilim that our two species are able to interact."

Nanoha recalled her own time spent within the interior of Leliel, and the strange shadow that claimed to be a combination of her mind and the mind of the Angel.

"Give Hayate back!" Vita cried.

"And return to slavery?" Bardiel asked. "Spend the rest of my existence as a glorified battery? No. This body now belongs to me."

"What are your intentions, then?" Signum asked grimly. "Will you attack NERV as have the Angels before you?"

"We Angels are drawn here because we seek union with Lilith; we wish to embed our Cores in her flesh and at last become a complete being." Bardiel said. "However, I am incapable of attaining union with Lilith, irreversibly bound as I am to the far inferior flesh of Hayate Yagami." Bardiel said.

"How dare you call Hayate inferior!" Vita yelled.

Nanoha saw that the young Magical Girl was shaking with tension as she gripped her weapon. Vita wanted nothing more than to pulverize the Angel and free Hayate... except the Angel was _in_ Hayate's body, so any attack against the Angel would be an Attack on Hayate as well. Nanoha saw panic in Vita's eyes.

"I wished to become one with the Black Mother, source of all knowledge and progenitor of all terrestrial life." Bardiel said. "Instead, I have been forced to bond with a _mere_ Lilim. How could this pitifully body possibly satisfy my great longing for union with Lilith? But it's impossible now — having access to the knowledge within the mind of Hayate Yagami, I know that it is impossible to ever remove my Core from her."

"You're wrong!" Vita told her. "We'll find a way to free Hayate from you, even if we have to tear her Device out of her chest!"

"We Angels fight to destroy you Lilim in order to achieve union with Lilith, and I have forever lost my chance to attain that goal." Bardiel said, ignoring her. "But for ripping me prematurely from my Mother's womb... for mutilating my Core to disguise it as a Lilim creation... for lobotomizing me so that I could serve as a magical power source... for all your many crimes, I will bring about your destruction." Bardiel said. "I will rip apart this pit where you have hidden the Black Mother and expose Her to the open sky, so that the next of my kind to awaken may join with Her without resistance. And though I myself will never achieve the union we Angels desire, I will take solace in the fact that the one who does will exterminate your entire species. That will be my vengeance."

"We will not allow that." Signum said. "Even though you possess the body of our friend, we will do what is necessary to stop you."

"You are in no position to _allow_ me anything, Enslaver of Kerub." Bardiel said. "Were it within my power, I would heal and awaken the Angels imprisoned within you as Iruel did to me. However, an Angel may only repair those damaged Cores you call Devices by replacing the destroyed portions with parts of its own body. As I am now housed within a body of unyielding flesh rather than a body of malleable magic, that is impossible for me. So I will grant my enslaved brethren the only other freedom I can offer them — the freedom of death."

As Bardiel spoke, the Magical Girls sensed a huge aura of magical energy beginning to build around it. It was the same kind of sensation they felt when Hayate readied one of her devastatingly powerful spells. In fact, the power radiating from the Angel was if anything more intense than the aura Hayate normally generated; Bardiel had been born with this power, and could naturally wield it in a way that Hayate could not. Despite the shock of Hayate's possession and the revelations about their Devices, the Magical Girls realized they had to act immediately.

"I regret having to attack a friend." Nanoha said. "But... you leave me no choice! I have to protect the world, no matter what! Divine Shooter!"

Spheres of pink energy formed themselves around Nanoha and then shot through the air towards Hayate's possessed body. The Angel showed no reaction, making not even the slightest movement as Nanoha's spells splashed ineffectually against its Barrier.

"Weak." Bardiel said dispassionately. "Your words are hollow, Enslaver of Abaddon; you claim high ideals, but are unable to put them into action."

"Stop speaking with Hayate's voice!" Vita yelled. "I'll make you give her body back! Swallow Flier!"

She swung Graf Eisen in an arc, sending a compact sphere of orange energy hurtling on an erratic path. Bardiel did not even bother to raise its Barrier this time, simply floating motionless as the attack missed entirely.

"Worthless." Bardiel told her. "You lack resolve. You will not risk damaging the flesh that once belonged to your friend."

The Angel raised Hayate's hands.

"Bloody Dagger." it intoned.

A number of knife-like red projectiles appeared in the air around Bardiel. A moment later, they shot outwards, accelerating at such speeds that they appeared to turn into streaks of light. There was no time for the Magical Girls to raise any kind of shields before the daggers impacted their Barrier Jackets and exploded violently. The girls were blown off their feet by the force of the strike, and their exposed skin scalded by the burning magical energies.

Had Bardiel put all of its power into the attack, it might have killed them all on the spot. However, it had used only a small fraction of the massive amount of energy it had accumulated. Seeing the Magical Girls knocked battered and bloodied to the ground, Bardiel turned the massive remaining portion of its power on NERV. The Angel extended one of Hayate's slender arms and pointed at the black pyramid of Central Dogma.

"Hraesvelgr." Bardiel said emotionlessly.

The Angel channeled its enormous magical reserves into three blazing sigils that kindled to life in the air around it. From each of these shot a massive blast of destructive energy. Three throbbing beams of magical power, any single one of which was strong enough to rip the GeoFront asunder, converged on the building. But at the last moment before impact, a green portal opened in the air and swallowed the attacks, diverting them somewhere far away. Shamal had managed to get back on her feet, and Klarer Wind glimmered on her finger as she used it to protect the base. Bardiel slowly turned its cold eyes back towards her.

"I had hoped to let you live long enough to witness my triumph, and the downfall of your race." Bardiel said. "But if you wish to meet your demise sooner — so be it. You will be the first to die, Enslaver of Mbriel."

Bardiel raised Hayate's hands and held them apart, and several more daggers of red magic appeared between them.

"Bloody Dagger."

Knowing the attack was coming, Shamal quickly raised a portal in front of her to catch the incoming projectiles. However, the knives suddenly veered to the sides as they accelerated, swinging around the edges of the portal and exploding against Shamal's back and sides. Her Barrier Jacket ripped under the force of the explosions, and she collapsed bleeding to the ground.

"Bloody Dagger." Bardiel repeated, and a new set of magic daggers appeared in the space between her hands.

"Stop!" Fate yelled. "Arc Saber!"

Bardiel turned to glance at Fate, who had already launched herself into the air. The streaking daggers turned mid-flight to follow the Angel's cold gaze and zeroed in on Fate. However, Fate had already prepared her Defenser spell before leaping towards the Angel. The daggers exploded against a shell of yellow light that swelled to surround Fate; though the shield was shattered by the blasts, the girl within was unharmed. She continued her flight through the air, a scythe-like crescent of crackling yellow energy extending from Bardiche. Bardiel repositioned Hayate's hands, placing one palm-out towards Fate; and the Angel's blue Barrier snapped to life in front of the girl. Sparks flashed from the tip of Bardiche's blade as Fate tried to cut through the Angel's defenses, but the wall of blue energy did not waver.

"Pitiful." Bardiel commented. "Baraqiel's power should match my own, but you are unable to use it to its full potential. Your bond with the Angel imprisoned within you is much weaker than that of the other Magical Girls. To enslave my brethren for their power, then squander it through improper bonding? You Lilim truly disgust me."

Fate's only response was to grit her teeth and push harder on her Device. Slowly, the sizzling tip of the blade began digging into the Angel's Barrier. By this time the other Magical Girls had recovered from Bardiel's first salvo. While Vita rushed to Shamal's side, raising a shield to protect her injured friend from any further attacks, Signum launched herself into the air and flew towards Fate. The elder Magical Girl thrust Laevatein forwards, driving the tip of the blade into the weak point Bardiche had formed in the Barrier. The sheet of blue magic shattered under the force of Signum's blow and she continued moving forwards, sword outstretched. Bardiel, who had seemed to be controlling Hayate's body with almost deliberate slowness, was finally forced to react quickly. She swung one hand towards Fate, letting loose an additional crimson dagger that exploded against the girl's chest and sent her reeling backwards; and at the same time seized the blade of Signum's sword with her other hand. The blade stopped cold against Hayate's apparently delicate skin, held back by the force of the Angel's will.

"Futile." Bardiel informed Signum. "You lack the strength to—"

"Violet Lightning Flash!" Signum interrupted.

Fiery red magic suddenly surged upwards from the sword's hilt, coating the blade in a sheath of flame. The unexpected burst of magic overpowered the Angel's defensive energies and scalded the skin of the hand that clutched the blade. The Angel appeared to be momentarily shocked by Signum's unexpected aggressiveness; then Hayate's pretty features twisted into a hate-filled snarl. Bardiel swung around Hayate's free hand and delivered a vicious punch directly to Signum's face. The sheer force of the blow knocked Signum backwards, blood spraying from her mouth. As the Magical Girl fell backwards, Bardiel also backed away, bringing Hayate's hands together in front of it as it did so. A sphere of seething darkness appeared between Hayate's palms.

"Diabolic Emission!" Bardiel shouted angrily, hurling the darkness at Signum.

The sphere of dark energy began expanding the moment it left Hayate's hands. Signum, recovering from the Angel's blow, saw the oncoming attack. Recognizing the danger from the times she had seen Hayate cast the spell, she immediately began pouring power into her flight magic and hurled herself backwards. Despite her impressive speed, the rapidly expanding sphere of destruction seemed like it would overtake her. At the last moment, however, a portal opened behind Signum's back, then snapped shut as soon as she had passed through it and before the Angel's offensive magic could follow her. Signum found herself lying on the ground next to Shamal. Shamal was so injured that she couldn't stand without Vita's support, but her eyes still shone with determination. Vita maintained her shield, which now covered Signum as well as Shamal and herself, but Bardiel didn't press the attack. It instead examined Hayate's burned hand with a mixture of distaste and confusion.

"Pain of the flesh... an unfamiliar sensation." Bardiel said. "As an Angel, I longed to obtain a material form so that I might enjoy the same physical pleasures as you Lilim — but I never contemplated that there might be feelings like this one. This must be the result of the inferior flesh in which I am trapped — surely the body of great Lilith is free of such frailties."

The Angel seemed to make an effort to regain control of its emotions, arranging Hayate's face back into a blank mask.

"It seems you are the only one not holding back against me, Enslaver of Kerub." Bardiel said. "How cruel you must be, to unhesitatingly attack the form of a precious friend."

"I did not attack my friend Hayate." Signum said. "I attacked _you_, Angel."

"True." Bardiel admitted. "It seems that you can see the truth. I will never be enslaved again. Hayate is gone forever; this body belongs to me now."

"We won't give up on Hayate!" Vita shouted.

"But we will not hesitate to do what is necessary to stop you." Fate added.

"Meaningless words and hollow sentiment!" Bardiel said. "Come at me, if you think you have the resolve!"

"Graf Eisen!" Vita called. "Gigantform!"

She began pouring magical energy into the Device, causing the hammer's head to grow to enormous size. Hayate's head snapped around to glare at her.

"The insolence of you Lilim!" Bardiel yelled angrily. "You demean my sibling by addressing it by a false name even as you take its power for your own! I will make you suffer before you die, Enslaver of Adririon!"

"Shut the hell up!" Vita yelled back. "Deadly Punishment!"

She leaped towards the Angel wearing the flesh of her friend, a corona of orange light beginning to burn around her weapon as it picked up speed.

"Bloody Dagger!" Bardiel spat.

"Not this time!" Nanoha said. "Protection!"

A pink shield appeared around Vita, protecting her from the brunt of the blast as Bardiel's red knives rocketed towards her and exploded. Vita burst out of the explosion, slightly singed but with undiminished speed and determination, and swung Graf Eisen. Bardiel's Barrier sprang up in front of the massive hammer and there was an enormous flash of light as Vita's orange magic collided with the Angel's blue defense. The shockwave knocked Vita backwards, sending her hurtling away from Bardiel; but a moment later, the Barrier shattered like glass. Even before Vita had reoriented herself, Signum was taking advantage of the lapse in Bardiel's defenses.

"Flying Dragon Flash!" Signum called.

Her sword Laevatein extended into a whip that whirled through the air around Hayate's body. The entire length of the Device burst into magical flames that grew in size as Laevatein swung through the air, becoming a tornado of flame which contracted around the Angel.

"Atem des Eises!" Bardiel shouted.

Cubes of blue magic materialized around her and exploded, drowning the fiery walls of the tornado beneath a tide of icy magic. The flames vanished as the long, thin thread of Laevatein froze solid and then shattered, the pieces of the Device dissolving back into specks of red magic as the fell to the ground of the GeoFront. Signum immediately focused her attention on the hilt of Laevatein, pouring fresh magic power into it to reconstruct the broken blade. Her magic began knitting together a new blade, but slowly; and her attack had drawn Bardiel's attention to her.

Before the Angel could do more than glare angrily, however, Shamal clenched her fist and activated Klarer Wind. A glowing green portal connected to the vacuum of space appeared directly beneath Bardiel's feet. A massive windstorm instantly formed as all the air within the GeoFront began rushing through the portal. However, despite being directly above the sucking hole, Hayate's body did not descend an inch: the Angelic wings protruding from the back of her Barrier Jacket extended to their full length, and powerful flight magic kept her hovering in place.

"Misteltein!" Bardiel shouted over the roar of the wind.

Seven spears of light appeared in the air around the Angel and shot downwards into the disc of the portal. Instead of passing through it like everything else, the tips of the magical weapons burst through the bottom of the portal, pincushioning it. A moment later, the glowing spears exploded into clouds of brilliant white sparks; and the portal broke apart with them, turning into an opaque circle of green energy and then crumbling to pieces. The fierce wind that had filled the GeoFront faded away as abruptly as it had begun.

"Plasma Smasher!" Fate called.

A thick beam of thunderous yellow energy burst forth from Bardiche and shot across the air towards Bardiel. The Angel controlling her body raised its unburned hand, palm outstretched as though to block the magical attack; but instead of trying to once more raise its Barrier, it caused three magical sigils to flare to life in the air around it.

"Hraesvelgr!" Bardiel spat viciously.

A colossal beam of throbbing white energy shot out from each of the sigils. One of the beams slammed head-on into Fate's oncoming thunderbolt, causing a deadlock between the two shafts of magical power. The other two attacks unexpectedly veered away at angles struck out towards Vita and Signum. The unsuspecting Magical Girls had no defenses prepared against the beams of energy that abruptly fell upon them, and they could do nothing but curl up under the onslaught of offensive power and hope that their Barrier Jackets could endure the Angel's wrath. Even as Vita and Signum were bathed in the withering fire of two of the beams, the third overpowered the stream of energy issuing forth from Bardiche and slammed into Fate. The energy that broke through Bardiche's resistance and struck her was somewhat diminished compared to the full-force attacks endured by the other Magical Girls, but it was still enough to knock her out of the sky. When the brilliant white light issuing forth from the Angel's sigils ceased, Vita, Signum, and Fate were all crumpled on the ground, their Barrier Jackets torn and the skin beneath seared by the vicious attack. Shamal too had fallen to the ground, so injured from Bardiel's previous attacks that she couldn't remain standing unsupported any longer; only Nanoha still stood and defiantly faced the Angel possessing her friend.

"And what of you, Enslaver of Abaddon?" Bardiel shouted at Nanoha. "Do you lack the courage to even attempt to fight me as your friends have? Trash! Coward! Scum! The mere fact that a Lilim such as you has dominated an Angel is a crime worthy of the extermination of your entire wretched species!"

Nanoha looked up into Hayate's bright eyes. The girl's pretty face, usually so kind and gentle, had been twisted into a snarl of disgust and revulsion by the Angel possessing her. Looking at those distorted features, Nanoha felt pity welling up inside of her. It hadn't been that long ago that Nanoha herself had voiced concerns about the terrible destructive power that they Magical Girls wielded. Hayate had been among the first to reassure Nanoha, telling her that if her power caused Nanoha to go astray, Hayate would be there to stop her. If Hayate could see what Bardiel was doing with her body now, she wouldn't care about the danger to herself; she'd tell Nanoha to do whatever it took to stop the Angel. It was Nanoha's duty as a friend to grant that wish.

"I'll save you... Hayate." Nanoha said.

She leveled her staff at the form of her friend floating in the air and began summoning power from Raising Heart. Pink flames jetted from the staff and magical circles began scrawling themselves on the ground beneath her feet and in the air before her as Nanoha focused all her attention on gathering and shaping magical power.

"Utter futility." Bardiel said. "I can destroy you before you even finish gathering power for your useless spell."

"We will not allow that." Signum said.

The injured and bleeding woman slowly pulled herself up off the ground and got to her feet. Laevatein, fully repaired, shone in her hands.

"We'll protect Nanoha no matter what." Fate said.

"For Hayate's sake!" Vita added.

All of the injured Magical Girls slowly and painfully drew themselves up. Even Shamal, who was too injured to stand, brought herself up to her knees and glared defiance at the Angel.

"Foolish, persistent Lilim." Bardiel said. "You can barely stand. Your defeat is certain. Why do you insist on opposing me?"

"You couldn't possibly understand our reasons." Vita said. "You couldn't possibly understand our love!"

"So be it, Enslaver of Adririon." Bardiel said. "Let's see how well your meaningless Lilim ideals serve you when you're dying an agonizing death! Bloody Dagger!"

Streaks of blood-red magic leapt from Hayate's hands towards the wounded Magical Girls. However, they had all been expecting it and had their defenses prepared.

"Panzer Geist!"

"Panzer Schild!"

"Defenser Plus!"

Bubbles of light in all different colors sprung up around the Magical Girls, providing a multi-layered shield against the Angel's explosive projectiles. The blasts from the detonating offensive magic stood no chance of penetrating the girls' overlapping defenses. And even before the smoke from the explosions had cleared, the girls were already dropping their shields and flying into the air to press the attack.

"Swallow Flier!" Vita shouted.

She struck a ball of orange magic with Graf Eisen, sending it hurtling towards Bardiel. The Angel merely narrowed Hayate's eyes, and its impressive blue Barrier reformed between Hayate's body and the oncoming attack. However, a green-rimmed portal then opened in front of the orange missile, carrying it to the far side of the Angel's Barrier. The sphere of energy exploded directly in front of Hayate's face, causing Bardiel to flinch.

"Fire Dragon Flash!" Signum called.

A shaft of flame leapt forwards from Signum's Device, and she hurled it at the Angel's Barrier. It exploded on impact, forming a massive fireball that tore apart the Angel's defensive magic. Behind her, Fate put on a burst of speed, passing her and rocketing through the dissipating fragments of the broken Barrier.

"Arc Saber!" Fate shouted.

A scythe of crackling yellow energy extended from Bardiche's head as she flew towards Bardiel. The Angel was beginning to speak, intoning the first words of a spell in Hayate's voice, when a portal opened behind Hayate's head. Shamal thrust her arms through the opening and put Hayate in a choke-hold, cutting off Bardiel's incantation. The Angel, unaccustomed to the weaknesses of a physical body, was caught completely off guard by such a primitive attack. It clearly had no concept of hand-to-hand combat; and while its magical power exceeded that of the Magical Girls, Shamal's body was older and stronger than Hayate's. Bardiel was unable to break free of Shamal's grip as Fate approached. She swung down Bardiche, and the yellow scythe of magic cut off one of the Angel's wings. Bardiel screamed as the feathery appendage fell away, breaking apart into a cloud of blue sparks as it did so.

"Violet Lightning Flash!"

Signum had now caught up with Fate and reached Bardiel. She swung her flame-coated sword in a powerful arc that slammed brutally into the small of Hayate's back. The possessed girl's Barrier Jacket ripped apart under the force of the blow.

"Everyone!" Nanoha shouted. "Get clear!"

The other Magical Girls dropped away from Bardiel at the sudden call; Nanoha had finally finished summoning power for her attack. She was shrouded in a hazy aura of pent-up magic. Jets of pink flame blazed from her staff, and multiple magic circles of varying size and complexity scribed themselves on the air in front of her.

"Hayate." Nanoha said kindly. "Not too long ago, when we fought Matariel, I was worried that wielding such great power might corrupt me. Everyone assured me that if that happened, you all would stop me. Because part of being someone's friend is stopping them from going too far. I'm your friend, Hayate. So that's why..."

She leveled her staff at the struggling form of the Angel and shouted the name of her attack with all her strength.

"STARLIGHT BREAKER!"

A colossal beam of energy erupted from the tip of Raising Heart and roared through the air. Hayate's body seemed tiny and frail in the face of the incredible energies that Nanoha had unleashed. The Angel managed to raise a Barrier just before the attack struck, but the thin layer of blue magic was nothing compared to an attack into which Nanoha had poured all of her power. The defensive magic was shattered in a mere instant, and the tidal wave of pink energy swallowed the Angel whole. Bardiel screamed with Hayate's voice as it was enveloped in the searing inferno of magical energies. The magic ripped at the Angel's extremities: its wings began to shed feathers and then crumbled apart entirely. The raging energies began eating at Hayate's Barrier Jacket next, unraveling the magical fabric to reveal the clothes and skin beneath. Then there was nothing left shielding Hayate's body, and the full force of the magic hit her.

Nanoha could wield magic capable of vaporizing steel, pulverizing a mountain, annihilating a city. A human body couldn't possibly withstand the level of attack she was capable of launching. And yet, Hayate's body remained intact within the maelstrom of energy surging around her and through her. Her enemy, the target of the attack she had unleashed, was not her friend Hayate but the Angelic being within her body. Nanoha's magic was not a crude attack intended to boil blood and pulverize bone. It was magic to seek out and destroy other magic. An attack to destroy the Angel without killing the human it was bonded to. Nanoha had never attempted anything like this before; and as she continued pouring power through her staff, feeding the blazing cloud of energy that had enveloped Hayate, she desperately prayed that it would work.

The energy of Starlight Breaker flooded into Hayate's body, saturating her with Nanoha's magic. Her body had been filled to the brim with Bardiel's magic, but now the Angelic energy was annihilated by the waves of power flowing through her. The pink magic flowed down every blood vessel, sank into every cell, and purged every last trace of the Angel that had possessed her. Within seconds, only one point remained: the point deep within her chest where she had taken the thing that had been told was called Reinforce into her body. This was Bardiel's Core, the wellspring of its magic, and it would not be so easily overcome. Wave after wave of the Angel's blue magic expanded outwards from the Core, again and again canceling out the surges of pink energy that attempted to press inwards. The bonding of a human with an Intelligent Device was irreversible — Reinforce was no longer merely Bardiel's Core, but also Hayate's Linker Core, an integral part of her body. A team of doctors with the finest scalpels could not have cut it out of her now, and Nanoha had cast Starlight Breaker so as not to cause any physical damage at all. The spell could ravage the Angel's magic but not destroy the single physically solid part of its body, its Core. And so it had become a test of endurance: which would last longer, the magic which poured from Nanoha's staff or that which emanated from Bardiel's Core? Bardiel had been exerting itself fighting against all of the Magical Girls at once; but Nanoha's attack, being her first effort at such a sophisticated spell, was not very efficient and much of the energy she was putting out was being wasted.

Nanoha shook with exhaustion, but continued pouring out her magic, continued sustaining the spell that she hoped would save her friend. She knew she was approaching her limit — she could feel the same sensation coming over her as she'd felt at the end of her time in Leliel, when the last embers of magic sustaining her life within the Angel had begun to fade — but she resolved not to stop so long as she was conscious. She would squeeze out every last drop of magic in her body for Hayate's sake. Hadn't Fate been willing to do the same for her, when it had been her life in peril? Nanoha wouldn't show any less courage than her friends had. Her friends — Nanoha could feel her fellow Magical Girls around her. They had rushed to her side and were now clinging to her, helping support her as her own legs gave way. Nanoha didn't even have the strength to raise her staff anymore, but she continued forcing energy into the spell; and Fate took hold of Raising Heart and aimed it for her, keeping the great river of pink energy pouring out of it on target towards the Angel.

And Bardiel passed its limit first.

It had not fully understood what it meant to be fused with a human body. Its Core was no longer fully its own, but a part of Hayate as well. All the magic it called forth had to be channeled through her body. And the flesh of a Lilim could not withstand the same amount of magical current as the crystalline Core of an Angel. As desperation drove Bardiel to delve ever deeper into its magical reserves to counter Nanoha's attack, it tried to emit more magic than Hayate's body could handle at once. The connections between her body and the Angel were overtaxed — the magic backed up inside the Linker Core, unable to be released — the Linker Core overloaded — and something broke.

Nanoha slumped over in a faint. A moment later, the limp body of Hayate tumbled gracelessly to the ground, where it sprawled like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

* * *

Lindy and Dr. Akagi stood in the infirmary, where the Magical Girls lay in bed recuperating from the battle. Hayate was being kept separate from the others, in a special isolation room. The MAGI were nearly certain that Bardiel had returned to a dormant state from which it could not awaken from its own, and would pose no threat unless once again repaired by another Angel as it had been by Iruel; but the Commander had ordered that every possible precaution be taken. The possibility that the MAGI were mistaken, while unlikely, was too dangerous to ignore.

"What's the prognosis?" Lindy asked quietly.

"Nanoha will be fine." Dr. Akagi said. "She simply fainted from exhaustion after overexerting herself. The other Magical Girls have more significant injuries, but they are expected to recover quickly."

There was a pause.

"And Hayate?" Lindy finally prompted.

"The MAGI aren't certain whether the excessive channeling of magic burned out Hayate's connection with the Device, or Device itself broke under the strain." Dr. Akagi said. "Without knowing exactly what happened, it's hard to predict what the consequences will be. And there's also the injuries she sustained in the fight beforehand — Magical Girls normally can heal much better than ordinary humans, but I'm not sure she even is still a Magical Girl after what happened..."

Dr. Akagi trailed off again, then shook her head.

"I'm sorry." she said. "Hayate is physically stable, but comatose. I don't know if she'll ever wake up."


	26. Vigil For Hayate

**Chapter 26: Vigil For Hayate**

After days passed without any sign of renewed activity from Hayate's Device, the Commander finally consented to the girl being moved out of the special isolation ward and into a regular hospital room. With the lowered security, Hayate was finally able to receive visitors. Her friends got the chance to see her for the first time since the battle against Bardiel. Hayate's physical injuries had been treated, but her condition was still worrying. She remained in a coma, and the doctors could not say when or even if she would regain consciousness. There was nothing more they could do to help her; the only option was to wait and see.

Maya Ibuki had never been particularly close to Hayate. As one of the MAGI's three main computer technicians, or "bridge bunnies" as the other NERV members derogatorily called them behind their backs, her primary interaction with the Magical Girls was shouting out pertinent facts from the data being processed by the supercomputers during battles against the Angels. She might've talked with Hayate a few other times, maybe if they sat next to each other in the cafeteria or bumped into each other in the halls; but if so, none of their conversations had been about anything important enough to stick in her mind. She remembered only that Hayate was a bright, cheerful young girl. It was difficult to reconcile the knowledge that this girl was an orphan who had been trained for years as a child soldier in a conflict against monsters from outer space with the image of Hayate's laughing face. She had adopted the other Magical Girls-in-training at SEELE as her extended family; a family which had swelled to include Nanoha and Fate once she'd transferred to NERV. Perhaps Maya didn't have as much right as those closest of Hayate's friends to be here. But still, she felt the urge to give some gesture of support to the poor girl. To let her know that Maya appreciated the work she did, the hardships she endured, the sacrifices she made for the benefit of them all. Maya worked hard, but in the end she was nothing but a bridge bunny, tapping away on computer consoles in the safety of the GeoFront while Hayate went out and risked her life in battle. She admired Hayate more than she could say; and even if Maya could find the words, Hayate was no longer conscious to hear them.

Maya had to wait until she was off-duty to see Hayate. Just because one of the Magical Girls had been severely injured didn't mean they could throw all discipline out the window. The next Angel might still attack at any time, and it wouldn't do anyone any good if they got caught off-guard because they'd spent all their time hovering over Hayate instead of doing their jobs. It was night when Maya finally got the chance to enter Hayate's hospital room. Hayate lay on her back on the room's single bed, eyes closed, her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. It might have seemed like she was only sleeping, if not for the various medical equipment attached to her frail body.

A thoughtful nurse had placed chairs beside the bed so visitors could sit down next to Hayate. Maya had just taken a seat in one of these chairs when the door to the room opened again. To Maya's surprise, Dr. Akagi entered the room. Maya's first thought was that the doctor had come to perform some kind of treatment on Hayate; however, she then noticed that Ritsuko was in her civilian clothes. Ritsuko, like her, had decided to come visit Hayate once she was off duty. Ritsuko seemed as surprised to see Maya as Maya was to see her; and after a moment, she bowed her head.

"I'll leave." Ritsuko said.

"No, please stay." Maya said. "Sit with me."

Ritsuko hesitated a moment, then acceded to Maya's request. She sat down in the chair next to Maya and looked mournfully at Hayate's still form.

"I wish I could do something for her." Ritsuko said. "If I could tap into Reinforce and access its healing magic... But the Commander has forbidden me from doing anything to the Device. The MAGI still aren't certain about the extent of the damage it suffered during the battle. It may be too damaged for Hayate to ever use again — or it may be ready to wake up and go berserk again at the slightest provocation."

"I'm sure you'll find a way to help her." Maya said.

"That may not be possible." Ritsuko said.

"I believe in you." Maya said. "I've always admired you, sempai. You're an incredible scientist. You can do things no one else can. I know you'll find a way to help her."

Maya hesitated for a moment, then decided to go all in. She took a deep breath and continued:

"The truth is... I like you, sempai. I want to be more than just a subordinate to you. I want... to be your girlfriend."

Maya held her breath as she waited for Ritsuko's answer.

"I've known for a while that you like me." Ritsuko said. "I like you too, Maya. But I don't think entering into a relationship would be a good idea. You deserve someone better than me."

"I don't understand." Maya said. "What are you talking about?"

"You don't want to get involved with me." Ritsuko said. "Being the head scientist of NERV... means sometimes having to do bad things. I don't want you to have to be a part of that."

"I don't think you're a bad person, sempai." Maya said.

"I knew all along that the Devices were made from Angels." Ritsuko said. "The Commander forbid me from telling anyone, but I was aware of the danger that they might awaken."

"What happened to Hayate isn't your fault." Maya said. "If the Commander wanted it kept secret, no one could have expected you to disobey her. And you did examine Hayate after the battle with Iruel; the Angel was just clever enough to deceive you. You aren't solely responsible for everything that happens at NERV, and you don't have to blame yourself for everything that goes wrong."

"I've done lots of other terrible things that you don't know about." Ritsuko mumbled, though she no longer sounded as sure of herself as she had been.

Ritsuko hated herself, Maya realized. And in the depths of her self-loathing, she had come to assume that everyone else must loathe her as well. She had resigned herself to being the villain who performs necessary evil acts and is hated for it. But Maya didn't hate Ritsuko. She admired her sempai's intellect and fortitude. She wanted to know what Ritsuko had been through, to make her so certain that she deserved to be hated. And she wanted to help Ritsuko, to teach her to see in herself what Maya saw in her. Maya couldn't imagine what Commander Testarossa had forced Ritsuko to do that had caused her to form such a negative opinion about herself; but perhaps if she knew, she could help heal that pain.

"Will you come on a date with me?" Maya asked.

Ritsuko blinked, too surprised to answer to question.

"We'll go someplace quiet, we'll have a nice meal, and then we can talk." Maya continued. "You can tell me everything you're ashamed of, all the things you've done that you think are terrible, and I'll decide for myself whether you're a bad person or not. I think I have the right to make that judgement, don't you?"

"...I'll think about it." Ritsuko finally said.

Maya nodded. It was the most she could've hoped for; she had known from the start that Ritsuko would be reluctant to trust her. Still, the fact that Ritsuko was considering it was a hopeful sign: an indication that, despite the cold front she put up, she still yearned for human contact. Despite the traumatic experiences she'd been through, she hadn't entirely given up on having another relationship with someone.

"Please do." Maya said. "Let me know what you decide."

Maya stood up and quietly exited the room, leaving Ritsuko to her thoughts.

* * *

Later that night, after Dr. Akagi had left, another visitor entered the room. Shamal sat down by Hayate's side and looked sadly at her fallen friend.

"Do you remember when we first met?" Shamal asked. "It was on the first day you came to SEELE. I never told you this before, but when I first heard that new Magical Girl candidates were being recruited, I was jealous of you. This was before the compatibility-boost serum was developed, remember. I thought that I'd gotten too old to ever become a Magical Girl, that all the years I'd spent training and preparing would be wasted. You and Vita were the new girls who were being brought in to take the opportunity that I'd lost. I'd be lying if I wasn't a little resentful."

Shamal shook her head ruefully.

"But that all changed the moment I first saw you." she continued. "You looked so small, frightened and so lonely. I remembered what it was like when SEELE first recruited me — how frightened and alone I felt in those early days, when my parents died and I was brought to a strange base to undergo rigorous training. It was really tough on me, since I didn't have any friends to help me adjust. I didn't want another girl to have to go through that... not even a girl who had stolen my opportunity to be a Magical Girl. And I guess I figured that if I couldn't become a Magical Girl myself, the next best thing would be to become the mentor to a Magical Girl. At least then all the training I'd hd to go through wouldn't be wasted; I could help teach you and make sure you had an easier time of it than I did. That's why I approached you and offered to be your mentor."

Shamal smiled slightly as she recalled fond memories.

"You can't imagine how happy I was when I learned that I was chosen for the test of the compatibility-boot serum. Not just because I would be becoming a Magical Girl after all, but because it meant I would be able to go to NERV with you. You'd become more than just a student by that point; you were — are — like a little sister to me. You, Signum, and Vita are family to me now."

Shamal stood up and started to leave, then paused and took one last look back at her unconscious friend.

"Please get well soon, Hayate." Shamal she softly.

* * *

Signum stood silently at the foot of Hayate's bed for a few moments, then dropped to one knee and bowed her head.

"I must apologize, Hayate." she said. "I fear most of the injuries you suffered during the battle were inflicted by my hands."

She raised her head and gazed at Hayate's peaceful sleeping face.

"I knew that you would have rather died than be used as an instrument of destruction by an Angel." Signum said. "But I should have seen what Nanoha did — that it might be possible to destroy the Angel while still saving you. I do not think that I could have pulled off what she died — my magic is less flexible than Nanoha's suitable only for combat and destruction — but it should have at least occurred to me to try. Instead, I let the combat instinct instilled in me by my training overpower my affection for you. I saw you only as an Angel, a target, an enemy to be destroyed at any cost. While the others all hesitated, I attacked you without holding back. Please, forgive me."

Signum rose back to her feet.

"If you recover, I will tell you this again, so you can hear." she said. "But I wanted to say it now, while I was certain that I could, just in case... you don't..."

Signum trailed off, then shook her head.

"I'm doing it again, aren't I?" she asked. "Failing to believe in you. No. You have proved yourself a brave warrior and a good friend. I should respect you enough to put my faith in you. Hayate, I promise you — I _will_ apologize to you again once you've recovered. I will make sure you know how strongly I feel about you, my friend. And I will make certain to never again forgot those feelings myself. Duty is important... but so are you."

* * *

Nanoha and Fate both visited Hayate's room together. Lindy, understand their desire to want to spend time with their comatose friend, had given them permission to stay in the GeoFront overnight. The underground complex had plenty of spare bedrooms, for employees who didn't want the hassle of the daily commute from Tokyo-3 above. Nanoha couldn't image spending every day down here — being unable to see the sky would become unbearable after a while — but she was willing to stay one night for the sake of her friend. And it would also be an opportunity for her to have a much-needed discussion with Fate.

"Fate... there's something I need to tell you." Nanoha said.

It hadn't been easy, coming to the decision to confess to Fate. When she had last spoken with Dr. Akagi, the doctor had been disturbed to hear about her crush on Fate. Before Nanoha could pressure her into revealing whatever secret had unsettled her, their conversation had been cut short by the transformation of Hayate into Bardiel. Since then, Nanoha had tried on several occasions to resume their talk where they'd left off, but Dr. Akagi had been using Hayate's treatment as an excuse to avoid her. Nanoha was still concerned about what dark secret about Fate Dr. Akagi might be hiding; however, after some consideration, she had decided to go ahead and confess anyway. She loved Fate; after spending so long struggling with her feelings, she had finally come to accept that. And part of loving someone is being willing to stand by them, no matter what. It didn't matter what Dr. Akagi was keeping from her; she would be honest with her feelings and stand by them to the end.

"Sure, go ahead." Fate said.

"I like you." Nanoha said. "You're a great friend, but my feelings are deeper than friendship. I... have a crush on you. And I want to know how you feel about me. It's okay if your feelings for me aren't the same — I know most girls are only interested in boys, and we can just stay friends if that's the case for you — but if you do feel the same way about me... I'd like to start dating you."

Fate turned her deep, beautiful eyes on Nanoha, and Nanoha held her breath.

"I'm flattered." Fate said. "No one's ever confessed to me before."

That wasn't in itself an answer. Nanoha didn't trust herself to speak at this point; her heart was pounding in anticipation of Fate's response. She remained silent and waited for clarification.

"I'm... not sure about my orientation." Fate said. "For the longest time, I never even considered the possibility of having friends, let alone a romantic partner. The only thing that mattered to me was defeating the Angels to please Mother. Things have changed since Lindy took me in and you and the other Magical Girls became my friends, and I don't understand all these new feelings I've been experiencing since then."

"...Oh." Nanoha said. "I understand. You've improved so much lately that I forgot for a moment how sheltered a life you've lived. I mean, even I've been confused about my feelings lately, and my family was pretty open about that sort of thing; it's only natural that you'd have an even harder time working things out."

"Don't get the wrong idea." Fate said hastily. "I didn't mean to discourage you. You are certainly a very precious friend to me. Though I don't fully understand my feelings for you, they are strong ones. If you are interested in pursuing a romantic relationship, I'm willing to give it a try."

"I don't want you to feel pressured into this." Nanoha said quickly. "It's okay if you don't feel the same way about me; I won't stop being friends with you if you're straight."

Fate gave a small laugh at Nanoha's concern.

"Don't worry, I know you'd never intentionally pressure me into doing anything I wasn't comfortable with." she said. "And you don't have to be so afraid of hurting me by accident, either; I'm a big girl, I can make decisions for myself. I was thinking we could go on a date. Just as a test run, to see how I feel going out with a girl."

"Alright." Nanoha said. "As long as you're comfortable with it."

"I'll be fine." Fate assured her.

The two of them remained in silence by Hayate's side a while longer.

* * *

The last person to visit Hayate's hospital room that night was Vita. It was nearly dawn when she entered; there was no natural light in the GeoFront, but the lighting was varied to match the surface to help keep the staff on a natural day/night cycle. Soon the dim lights in the base would start to brighten, signaling the start of a new day.

Vita had dark circles under her eyes. She hadn't been able to fall asleep this night — had not slept well since Hayate had fallen into her coma. Vita rubbed her eyes before gazing uncomfortably at her friend.

"Ah, damn it." Vita muttered. "I've spent these last few days waiting for a chance to see you, but now I wish I hadn't come. I can't stand seeing you like this."

Vita leaned over the side of the bed, resting on her elbows.

"Seriously, what made you ever want to become a Magical Girl in the first place?" Vita asked. "You aren't cut out for this life. I knew that from the moment I first talked to you. I could tell right away that you're far too gentle a person to be going into battle against monsters like the Angels.

Vita shook her head and let it drop to the bed.

"It should've talked you out if." Vita mumbled. "Convinced you to drop out of the program. But you looked so happy to be there, to be getting a new home and a new family. I couldn't bring myself to take that away from you. So instead I promised that I would be your guardian; that I would always be there to protect you. Guess I failed pretty badly at that, didn't I? And now you're here, and there's nothing I can do to help you..."

Vita clasped one of Hayate's limp hands in her own.

"You're the most important person in the world to me." Vita said. "Please don't leave me."

Vita squeezed Hayate's hand. As though in response to the pressure, Hayate let out a soft sigh and shifted the position of her head. Vita nearly jumped in surprise at the sudden movement.

"Hayate?" Vita asked. "Hayate?"

She stood up and leaned over her friend. Hayate had begun to stir slightly, like someone waking up from a deep sleep. She seemed to be coming around at last — but there was no telling who would be in control when she awoke from her coma, the girl or the Angel. Vita pressed the call button on the bed, which would alert the hospital staff, but she didn't know how long it would take for someone to respond at this hour of the night. Vita was aware she could be in mortal danger if Bardiel were to reawaken, but there was no way she could run away and leave Hayate alone. Instead, she drew on the magic of her Device and materialized her weapon and Barrier Jacket.

"C'mon, Hayate." Vita urged. "You're strong. Stronger than any Angel. You can beat it."

Holding Graf Eisen in one hand, Vita raised the other and stroked Hayate's cheek. Hayate's eyes flickered, then opened. She looked around blearily for a moment, then focused on Vita.

"You're really here?" she asked thickly, her mouth dry from disuse. "I thought I was dreaming..."

"Of course I'm here." Vita said. "I'd never leave you, Hayate."

She dismissed her magic, returning to her civilian clothes.

"You really had us all worried for a while." Vita said. "I'm glad you're okay now."

Vita hesitated.

"You _are_ okay now, aren't you?" she asked. "It doesn't hurt anywhere, does it?"

"No, it's okay, I don't fail any pain." Hayate said, but her voice quivered.

"Hayate?" Vita asked.

"I feel fine." Hayate said, trying to sound strong. "Except... I can't feel my legs."


	27. Three Dates

**Chapter 27: Three Dates**

Lindy Harlaown knocked on the door of Clyde's apartment. Since Clyde was still being kept under house arrest by NERV security, the only times she could see him were when she took time off to visit. It was hard on her schedule, but she made time to see him whenever possible. There was no telling how much longer he would stay in Tokyo-3. Since he was no longer able to report useful information back to SEELE, they might decide to recall him at any time. Clyde was an important and highly skilled SEELE agent; the Council wouldn't leave him sitting idle for long, and the Commander had made it quite clear that he wouldn't be allowed to do any more snooping at NERV. Lindy wanted to make the most of the time they had left.

"Hey there." Clyde said, opening the door. "Nice to see a friendly face."

"Don't the girls visit you?" Lindy asked.

"They do their best." Clyde said. "But lately, they've been spending most of their off-hours with Hayate. Not that I blame them, but it does get a bit lonely in here."

"It sucks that you can't visit Hayate." Lindy said.

"I'm used to it." Clyde said. "I've learned over the years that I can't always be there for the people I love. It comes with the job."

"Sucky job." Lindy said.

"Hey, if saving the world was easy, everyone would be doing it." Clyde said.

"Is that what you think you're doing for SEELE?" Lindy asked. "Saving the world?"

"It's the way they put it in the recruitment spiel." Clyde said. "Though I suppose Precia sees it differently."

"She seems to think she's saving the world _from_ SEELE." Lindy said. "Though it's hard to be sure, since poor grunts like me don't get told anything anymore. For all I know, she could be rebelling against them because she hates their fashion sense. I don't suppose you know anything more about the reason for the rift between NERV and SEELE?"

"I don't suppose I do." Clyde said. "And even if I did, I wouldn't be allowed to talk about it with anyone outside of SEELE. Certainly not in a room as heavily bugged in this one."

"The walls have ears, huh?" Lindy said.

"Most definitely." Clyde said. "I don't think Precia's ever going to let me out of her sight again. NERV security has this whole place wired."

"...Even the bedroom?" Lindy asked.

"Don't think about it." Clyde advised.

"It doesn't matter." Lindy said. "Nothing's going to stop me from being with you."

"As much as I enjoy the time we spent together, it would probably be best for you if you stopped coming here." Clyde said. "You know what Precia must think about it."

"Do I look like I care what Testarossa thinks?" Lindy asked.

"No." Clyde admitted. "But you should. She doesn't play nice with people she sees as enemies. Just look what she's done to me. And you know she could do worse; she's only holding off because the girls would object. And not even because she cares what they think, only because it would be inconvenient for her if they hated her. But if she decides that giving you or me a sunless prison cell, or even a bullet in the back of the head, has enough benefits to outweigh the disadvantages — she'll do it in a heartbeat."

"I don't care." Lindy said. "The risk is worth it. _You_ are worth it."

"You certainly know how to make a guy feel special." Clyde said. "But take care; you won't be doing me a favor if you get yourself killed. I haven't even gotten a chance to propose yet."

"Then why don't you?" Lindy asked.

Clyde paused, caught by surprise.

"Propose?" he asked.

"That's what I said." Lindy confirmed.

"I'm not used to this kind of forwardness from you." Clyde said.

"I've lost enough opportunities to hesitation, I think." Lindy said. "If I'd been brave enough to tell you how I felt back when we were younger, we might not be on opposite sides of the war now. I'm not going to make that mistake again. I don't want to have any more regrets."

"You've matured." Clyde said approvingly. "But in your hurry to make amends for past errors, I think you're overlooking a few problems of practicality. It'll be a bit difficult to hold a wedding while I'm under house arrest, for one thing."

"I know." Lindy said. "When I was a kid, I dreamed of someday having a fancy traditional wedding; but not all our dreams can come true. It's not the ceremony that's important; it's the vow between us. Even if it's not official or legally binding, I'll consider us married in spirit if you accept."

"A lovely sentiment." Clyde said. "But I'd actually like to have an official marriage with you, complete with a wedding ceremony."

"Really?" Lindy asked. "You're so pragmatic about most things, I assumed you'd feel the same way about marriage."

"I know it means a lot to you." Clyde said. "And what kind of man would I be if I ignored the things that are important to the woman I love? There is a place in life for formalities and pleasantries and symbolic gestures; and for you, dear Lindy, I insist on going the full distance. To skimp simply because it is convenient would be to say that compromising our love is preferable to overcoming the circumstances hindering us. And to that, I say no: our love is stronger than anything that could possibly impede it."

"You can be so unexpectedly romantic at times." Lindy said.

"I propose — in both senses of the term — that we consider ourselves engaged for now." Clyde said. "After the war ends, we'll be able get married with a proper ceremony and everything without any political concerns getting in the way. You're doing your job out of a sense of responsibility for stopping the Angels, not because you feel obligated to follow Precia's orders, right? So once the Angels are gone for good, there won't be any reason left for you to listen to her demands. You can quit NERV, I can quit SEELE, and we can ride off into the sunset together, so to speak"

"Promise?" Lindy asked.

"I do." Clyde said.

"In both senses of the term?" Lindy asked with a smile.

"Indeed." Clyde said. "For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness or in health."

"'Till death do us part." Lindy finished.

* * *

"Major Harlaown spoke to Clyde again today." Fuyutsuki said. "I haven't listened to the recording myself, but the surveillance team tells me they're now considering themselves to be engaged."

"Exactly the sort of romantic foolishness I would expect of the Major." Precia said.

"Young love is often foolish." Fuyutsuki said, perhaps a touch wistfully. "But one must put one's duty first. Do you want me to have a talk with her? Tell her to stop fraternizing with the enemy?"

"What would be the point?" Precia asked. "I think the Major has already made it perfectly clear that she has placed her loyalty with the wrong people. Never give an order that you know will be disobeyed, Fuyutsuki; it is a poor leader indeed who forces his suboordinates to subvert him. No, let the Major hold on to her silly love fantasies for now; when she is no longer needed to direct the Magical Girls in combat against the Angels, she and her fiancé will both be discreetly dealt with."

Fuyutsuki reflexively averted his eyes. When Precia had first been placed in charge of NERV, she had quickly moved to consolidate her power, ensuring that all the employees under her authority were loyal to her personally rather than to SEELE. Those whose loyalty to the Council was too strong to be overcome by either persuasive argument or generous bribes, had been "discreetly dealt with". Some of them had been old friends of his. Of course, it had been necessary at the time. But in Lindy's case...

"Will that really be necessary?" Fuyutsuki asked. "You have the ability to wield magic, and she does not; I doubt there's much she could to oppose you..."

"You have gone soft, Professor." Precia chided. "One should never hesitate to destroy one's enemies; for, given the chance, they would not hesitate to destroy you in turn. The Major is quite harmless on her own, I am certain of that; but if Clyde were to pass her orders from the old men... No, better to simply remove the threat."

"I see." Fuyutsuki said neutrally.

"I would have her eliminated now, but there is the morale of the Magical Girls to consider." Precia continued conversationally. "They are probably skilled enough to succeed in battle without her direction by now, but they seem to have taken a shine to the Major, and would not easily adjust to her loss. It is inconvenient, but I have come to accept that not all of those under my command are as efficient as I would wish."

It was at moments like this that Fuyutsuki was most aware of the divide between him and his former student. Even when she went into her rages against Fate, as cruel and violent as she could be, she was at least acting on feelings Fuyutsuki could relate to. But when she spoke about her plans and machinations, and methods to which she was willing to resort to achieve them; during these times she was so coldly logical, so devoid of human emotion, that she felt more alien than the Angels. Fuyutsuki didn't trust himself to speak his heart at times like this; he knew Precia would see his sentimentality as a weakness. Instead, he fell back on giving laconic answers and letting her interpret them as she liked.

"Unfortunate." Fuyutsuki said.

"True." Precia said. "But one must always make allowances for human nature. To be superior is by definition to be surrounded by the inferior, is it not? It is simply something I have to live with. In any case, the security teams, at least, are unwavering in their loyalty and unhesitant in carrying out their duty. They have been informed about the Major's lapse in judgement and been given standing orders regarding the situation. In the highly unlikely case that the Major or Clyde attempt something before the conclusion of the war, they can be dealt with ahead of schedule. The bullet is loaded, it is simply a matter of pulling the trigger."

"Figuratively or literally?" Fuyutsuki asked, unable to fully mask bitterness in his voice.

"Exactly." Precia said, the ghost of a smile crossing her face.

* * *

Maya Ibuki and Ritsuko Akagi sat across from each other at a cafe in Tokyo-3. After much hesitation, Ritsuko had finally decided to accede to Maya's request for a date. Since the Commander's betrayal of her, she had avoided getting into any other personal relationships and devoted herself wholly to her work. However, despite the cold demeanor she cultivated, she wasn't a machine; she longed for social interaction like anyone else. And her job had placed her under such enormous pressure lately that she feared she might break under the strain if she didn't find someone to confide her fears and anxieties to. In her heart, she didn't expect her relationship with Maya to work out. But perhaps, if she could confess to Maya, and if Maya could forgive her for her myriad sins, it might ease the unbearable burden weighing on her soul.

After they had placed orders for their food, Ritsuko began raising the issues that were pressing on her.

"You know about my history with the Commander?" Ritsuko asked.

"I've heard about it." Maya said. "Enough to know that what happened was the Commander's fault, not yours."

"I was foolish." Ritsuko said. "I thought the Commander loved me. I should have known better. I knew she had a husband and daughter before Second Impact; but even so, I deluded myself into believing that her previous relationship had been the lie, and that her love for me was the truth..."

"Love can make people foolish." Maya said.

"I'm a scientist." Ritsuko said. "I'm supposed to be intelligent, logical, and impartial in my judgements. Instead, I was more foolish than most. I let the Commander talk me into doing many things that I should not have."

"Like what?" Maya asked gently.

"Do you know what the blood of Lilith is?" Ritsuko asked.

"It's an organic fluid used in the MAGI system." Maya said.

"It's much more than that." Ritsuko said. "It's a medium capable of encoding large amounts of information and transferring it to biological systems. Injecting it into your bloodstream is like injecting knowledge directly into your mind. It is an exhilarating experience... and an addicting one. For a long time, I avoided using it, fearful of the consequences it could have. But the Commander encouraged me to try it; said that it was the only way for me to reach my full potential. Because I loved her, I believed her. And now... I can no longer work without the aid of the blood of Lilith. to put it bluntly, I am a drug addict."

Ritsuko watched Maya closely to see how she would respond.

"You've never looked like an addict to me." Maya said. "You're always looked calm, collected, and in control."

"Because the Commander has given me a steady supply of the blood of Lilith." Ritsuko said. "You've never seen me deprived of it. If she decides to stop providing me... I've seen what happens when people who've become dependent on the blood get cut off from it. When the Commander was taking control of NERV from SEELE, she used withdrawal to break the wills of the scientists who initially tried to stay loyal to the Council. They all give in, in the end, pledging their loyalty to her in exchange for being allowed to resume using the blood. They told me that withdrawal felt like a living death. Like being a zombie, able to act but unable to think. Make no mistake: the Commander will only supply me with the blood of Lilith as long as I am useful to her. After the war, she won't be giving me any more of it. No matter how strong you think I am, I can assure you I won't be strong enough to keep my composure through that. I'll be a wreck."

"If so, then I'll be there to help you through it." Maya said. "That's my duty as your assistant... and as someone who cares about you."

"Your duty will end when the war does." Ritsuko said. "You have no obligation to hang around to babysit a broken-down junkie... which is what I'll be, when the blood of Lilith runs out."

"Don't say that!" Maya admonished. "You're a great woman; you've overcame many things before, and you'll overcome this as well. Why do you put yourself down so much? Why do you want to scare me away"

"I've made a lot of mistakes." Ritsuko said. "I have a lot of regrets. You shouldn't have to suffer because of my poor choices."

"Everybody has regrets." Maya said. "But you can't change the past. Only the future. You have to look forwards."

"Think about your own future." Ritsuko said. "Associating with me could get you in serious trouble. Getting addicted to the blood of Lilith is the least of the bad things I let the Commander talk me into. There are things... it's not an exaggeration to say that your life could be put in danger because of the baggage I carry. You're a bright young woman. You have the potential to go far. Don't let me drag you down."

"If I'm so bright, you should trust me to make decisions for myself." Maya said. "And my decision is..."

Maya leaned forwards across the table and gave Ritsuko a brief kiss on the lips. She then abruptly sank back into her chair, blushing furiously, as though surprised by her own momentary boldness.

She looked extraordinarily cute, Ritsuko could not help but think. The Commanderr had always been stern and hard-edged, even when she had been feigning love. Maya, by contrast, seemed to radiate innocence. And Ritsuko realized that, against her better judgement, in spite of her bitter vow to never again let emotion for another woman override reason, she liked Maya Ibuki.

"Um... I hope I wasn't too forward there." Maya said.

"No." Ritsuko said. "I liked it."

Maya's expression brightened, and her face shone like the sun. Looking at her radiant features, Ritsuko thought that perhaps this woman really could hear the sordid list of all of the Ritsuko's past sins without hating her for them. There were some things she couldn't tell, of course, not where there was a risk of being overheard: the Commander couldn't have every cafe in the city bugged, but it wouldn't surprise Ritsuko if there was a security team assigned to discreetly protect NERV's valuable head scientist, a team with standing orders to pass on to the Commander anything they happened to overhear while guarding her. Some of the things she'd done for the Commander were classified military secrets. The Commander probably wouldn't use that as an excuse to kill Ritsuko, not while she was still valuable... but she might use it as an excuse to kill Maya, making up some bullshit justification like Maya being an enemy spy squeezing Ritsuko for classified information. So she couldn't yet tell Maya about the very worst of the things that she had done. But even so, there were still so very many sins committed in the Commander's name that she could confess to. And if Maya could, after hearing these many sordid confessions, still look Ritsuko in the eyes and say, "I love you"... Then it would be impossible for Ritsuko _not_ to fall in love with her.

"I'd like to tell you some more about what I did for the Commander." Ritsuko said. "So you fully understand what you are getting yourself into. If, after hearing this, you still wish to date me... then you are truly an exemplary woman, and I would consider it an honor to be able to call myself your girlfriend."

"Sempai!" Maya gasped, overcome by a tangle of emotions even she couldn't full sort out.

"Are you familiar with the compatibility boost serum the Commander used on Signum and Shamal?" Ritsuko asked. " Let me tell you about the things she made me do to develop it..."

The two women sat at the cafe a while longer: Ritsuko, recounting the twisted experiments she performed in the deepest laboratories of NERV out of love for a woman who never loved her back; and Maya, taking it all in and responding not with fear or disgust but with absolution. Then the two women stood and kissed each other again, longer and deeper this time, before paying their bill and leaving the cafe to head somewhere more private.

* * *

"It seems Dr. Akagi has started dating Maya Ibuki." Fuyutsuki said.

"Ha." Precia seemed genuinely amused. "So the young maiden thinks she can melt the doctor's frozen heart with the warmth of her love?"

"I'm surprised." Fuytusuki said. "I thought you'd be more concerned, given the way you've reacted to Major Harlaown's dalliances with Clyde. She could be seducing Ritsuko as part of a plot to turn her against you."

"Lieutenant Ibuki's loyalty is not in question." Precia said. "She is after all a relatively recent hire, one who has always worked for me alone. And since every last SEELE loyalist had already been purged by the time she began working here, it is not as if she could be a plant helped through the recruiting process by one of the old men's agents."

"There's still an active mole from SEELE amidst the staff." Fuyutsuki reminded her.

Precia seemed to think deeply before responding.

"You are right, Fuyutsuki; at this point, no one should be above suspicion." she said. "I would not have suspected bright young Ibuki of being an agent of the old men; but then, if the mole _was_ someone I suspected, I would already have found them. Unlikely as it seems, there is a possibility that our seemingly fresh-faced Lieutenant is in fact a duplicitous snake placed into our midst."

"It is hard to imagine, isn't it?" Fuyutsuki sighed. "I wish I could say that I was a hundred percent certain of her loyalty. I probably _would_ say so, if we didn't know for a fact that we have a mole. It has to be someone; and until we know who, we have to be suspicious of everyone."

"Even so, I do not see much reason for concern in this case." Precia said. "The Lieutenant will not be able to influence Dr. Akagi with romance. After all, I personally taught her how much sweet whispers of love are worth in the end."

Fuyutsuki frowned at the memory. He had not approved of Precia's strategy of seducing Dr. Akagi. He had been a romantic, back in his youth; and although Second Impact had shaken society to its roots, he liked to think that love still meant something.

"I still think that was unnecessary." he said.

"Naoko Akagi was a member of SEELE." Precia said. "I was willing to use any means at my disposal to turn Ritsuko away from her mother's path. My body is a tool like any other, and I have no compunctions against using it as such."

"If utility is your only concern, then I fail to see how it benefitted you to twist the knife so much when you broke it off." Fuyutsuki said. "She resents you for that, you know."

"She may resent me, but more importantly she needs me." Precia said. "I control her access to the blood of Lilith. That addiction is a far more powerful means of control than the ephemeral bonds of emotion. As for the less than pleasant aspects of the breakup, dragging her name through the mud ensured that there would be no one else willing to take her side. She would have to rely on me and me alone. Let her hate me — it will not change the fact that she needs me."

"I see." Fuyutsuki said.

"Let the young Lieutenant have her fun for now." Precia said. "In the unlikely event that she is later discovered to be an enemy agent, I can confront Dr. Akagi about it at that time. I am certain that I will be able to remedy any malign influences that she may have imposed. Why, I would even enjoy it."

Yes, Fuyutsuki thought. You would, wouldn't you. He remembered when his student's eyes had held the warm glow of genuine love. Now the shone only with cold cruelty. Their plan to oppose SEELE and prevent Instrumentality was a necessary one, but it frightened him to see the effect it had had on the woman he had once admired. And it frightened him also to think that he had also changed without realizing it. That he had become the kind of man he once would have despised.

It was something he tried very hard not to think about lately.

* * *

Nanoha let Fate choose the time and place of their date. It was evening when they met outside Central Dogma. To be honest, Nanoha would have preferred to go on a date in Tokyo-3, beneath the real sky rather than the enclosed dome of the GeoFront. However, she also felt that it was important to get to know more about Fate, the things she held precious. According to Fate, she'd been living in the GeoFront ever since her father's death in Second Impact, so it was only natural that her favorite places would be here.

Fate brought Nanoha to the top of a hill. The terrain inside the GeoFront was mostly flat, but there were occasional isolated hills dotting the landscape. Nanoha thought this odd, and asked Fate about it. It turned out Fate was quite knowledgeable about the history of the GeoFront; since her mother was in charge of NERV, Fate had diligently learned all she could about it in an attempt to earn her admiration. Fate explained that interior of the GeoFront had once been completely flat; however, when NERV turned it into their headquarters, they dug facilities well below the ground level. This had involved the excavation of a considerable quantity of dirt, and there didn't seem to be any point in expending the time and energy necessary to haul it up to the surface for disposal when there was so much empty space within the dome. To make living underground more comfortable, the dome had then been rigged with lights and a sprinkler system had been installed in the ground, allowing for the growth of plants like grass and trees, thus giving the landscape a more natural look.

This hill was presumably composed of dirt from the excavation of Central Dogma, as it was within comfortable walking distance of the black pyramid at the center of the dome. Once the girls had reached the top of the hill, Nanoha could immediately see why it was one of Fate's favorite places. The GeoFront's lighting was varied to correspond with the outside world, to help the people living within maintain a normal day-night cycle; now, as it darkened to match the setting of the sun, Nanoha was able to see a sight like none other in the world. The upside-down city that hung from the top of the dome shone like an incredibly vast and intricate chandelier. The myriad lights that shone from its windows were reflected in the large square lake at the foot of the pyramid. Nanoha knew the lake to be devoid of marine life, having inspected it before — apparently it was intended to be a functional reservoir rather than a purely aesthetic element, and they didn't want anything that might get stuck in the pipes — but due to the water's gentle rippling motion, the lights reflected on the surface gave the appearance of schools of glittering fish darting back and forth. The central pyramid itself was lit up by spotlights positioned on the ground; and while the black material composing it absorbed most of the lighting, there was a band of highly reflective material near the summit that must have been installed for the specific purpose of making the pyramid appear to shine with a crown of light.

"Incredible." Nanoha said.

Incredible that such beauty could be found here, in an underground fortification that was humanity's last line of defense against alien monsters that sought to end all terrestrial life. Incredible that she, who had just last year been an ordinary girl living an ordinary life, could stand here and view it as one of humanity's few powerful defenders. Incredible that she could do so while holding hands with the girl who she had fallen in love with.

"Would you like to fly?" Fate asked.

The two girls summoned their magic and rose into the air, glowing like twin stars: Fate yellow, and Nanoha pink. They swooped through the dimly lit cavern, performing an intricate aerial ballet above the lake. While Nanoha had gotten used to flying, most of her experience was in battle training and in battles against Angels; it was not often that she'd had a chance to fly purely for the pleasure of it. Now, as she and Fate spun in a spiral over the lake, with the cavern's air whipping through her hair and the city lights shining like a vast constellation above her, she felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

It was fully night when the girls headed back to Lindy's apartment. Nanoha paused in front of the door, then turned to Fate.

"I really enjoyed our date." Nanoha said. "How did you feel?"

"I enjoyed it as well." Fate said. "I don't know whether or not I'm a lesbian... but I don't feel uncomfortable being with you. I'd like to go on another date with you sometime; you can choose the place this time. Then, if that goes well, we could... go a step further."

"Whatever you're comfortable with." Nanoha said.

Nanoha slept deeply that night, various possibilities of what Fate might mean by _a step further_ dancing through her dreams.

* * *

"Fate has become quite close to Nanoha." Fuyutsuki said.

Precia's face instantly clouded. Though a master of hiding her feelings behind an expressionless mask, the one subject that could cause her to lose her composure was that of her daughter. Fuyutsuki wished he didn't have to bring it up. However, Precia had made it clear that she expected a full accounting from him; if he left out information for any reason, he would be ineffective at his job.

"Nanoha's feelings for her seem to be romantic." Fuyutsuki continued. "Do you know if Fate...?"

"I neither know nor care." Precia said. "And it matters not. Be it romantic or platonic, the relationship between the girls has become too strong. Comradery between teammates is one thing, but love and friendship... unacceptable. I have told Fate so. I must have told her a thousand times, back when I still had hope she might live up to my expectations. She must never trust anyone but me. Never love anyone but me. Her loyalty should belong to me and me alone. And again she has betrayed me. Such an impudent child. She will be punished for this. Punished _severely_."

_Listen to yourself_, Fuyutsuki thought. _Do you have any idea how you sound?_

"In fact, I wonder whether I would not be better off disposing of her entirely." Precia continued. "I think she has caused me more than enough pain. It has been clear for some time that she is a failure as a daughter. I kept her because of her accidental bonding with Bardiche, and because she was useful for making the old men think they had a point of leverage over me; but perhaps her use has expired."

Fuyutsuki was long accustomed to bending to Precia's will on matters, but there came a time when a man had to take a stand. He had put up with Precia's abuse of Fate for far too long already; his conscience wouldn't allow him to let matters continue.

"Don't take your anger out on Fate." he said.

Precia glared at the older man.

"Fate belongs to me, and I will do as I please with her." she said.

Fuyutsuki knew all too well what Precia was willing to do to Fate when she wished to vent her pent-up anger and frustration. He wasn't about to let history repeat itself on that count.

"Hayate is out of commission for the foreseeable future." he reminded her. "And if we lost Fate, it would have a devastating effect on Nanoha, likely rendering her emotionally unfit for action as well. That would leave us with only three of six Magical Girls on active duty. I don't think we could afford that."

"You are my vice-commander, not my accountant." Precia said sternly. "I will decide for myself what I can or cannot afford."

"I am your advisor; or at least, I have been so in the past." Fuyutsuki said. "An advisor is useless if you ignore his advice. Please, listen to me on this matter. You're too emotional about Fate; you're letting your feelings get in the way of rational thought."

That got Precia's attention, as Fuyutsuki had known it would. Precia liked to believe that she was the perfect rational actor, making her decisions based on pure logic unswayed by emotion. As strong as her emotions were, Fuyutsuki believed that she could rise above them, even if only as a way of making a point: ignoring her emotions about Fate this one time to prove to him that she was capable of doing so whenever she pleased. To imply that her judgement was clouded was to imply that she was not in control of herself — and Precia had a pathological need to be in control.

"I was merely speculating about the available options." Precia said. "I would not so thoughtlessly dispose of a resource that could still prove valuable. You need not concern yourself further with Fate; she will be appropriately disciplined, nothing more."

Fuyutsuki sighed grimly. He had saved Fate's life — this time. But he had no doubt that Precia's loathing still smoldered beneath her cold exterior, ready to erupt again at any time. Precia's wrath was truly a terrifying thing to behold, and he didn't know how much longer he could protect Fate from it. It was only Fate's irreversible bond with Bardiche that had stayed Precia's hand from murder this long; and now, as Precia had bonded with a Device of her own and grew in magical power with each passing day, Fate's usefulness as a Magical Girl became less and less of a factor.

When Fate had successfully bonded with Bardiche, Fuyutsuki had hoped that she might be allowed to survive — but now, as the Commander's heart grew closed to even his words, he feared that it was not to be after all.


	28. The Arm Of God

**Chapter 28: The Arm Of God**

Sirens wailed across Tokyo-3. Powerful motors roared to life and began pulling buildings to relative safety underground. NERV security began escorting the population to sheltered evacuation bunkers. Deep below their feet, in a briefing room within Central Dogma, the Magical Girls assembled.

"The next Angel has appeared." Lindy informed them. "The target, designated Zeruel, is currently moving underwater towards Old Tokyo. When comes ashore, you girls will be there to engage it."

"It feels weird to be doing this without Hayate." Vita mumbled.

Their friend was hospital-bound, paralyzed from the waist down. This would be the first battle that the rest of the Magical Girls would have to fight without her.

"I know what you mean." Lindy said. "However, we can't exactly call a time-out. The Angels are going to keep coming, whether we're ready for them or not. The best thing for you to do is destroy the Angel quickly so you can come back home to Hayate as soon as possible."

"Then let's stop talking about it and do it." Vita said. "Open us a portal, Shamal."

Shamal touched the ring on her finger, and Klarer Wind's magic created a green-rimmed portal in the air. A salty sea breeze blew through it into the briefing room.

"Good luck, girls." Lindy said.

The Magical Girls stepped through the portal and onto the shore of Old Tokyo — though it occurred to Nanoha that the region might need a new name, as the ruins of the old Japanese capital had been completely obliterated by the Angel Ramiel. The Magical Girls stood at the rim of a bay that had been carved out by the Angel when it had turned its powerful beam weapon on Nanoha and Fate. Local geography made no difference to the Angels, however; they always progressed in a straight line from the New Dead Sea towards Tokyo-3, meaning that the newest one to have awakened would also be passing through this spot.

"It's coming." Signum said.

She pointed across the bay with her sword, towards a disturbance in the water where something large was surfacing. Zeruel arose from the waves and approached the Magical Girls. The Angel's body resembled a human torso; however, where a human would have arms and legs, the Angel had only stumps. It lacked a neck entirely, instead gazing out of a skull-like mask set into the upper portion of its body. A massive glittering rod core was set into the black skin of its chest, enclosed by a cage of rib-like white bones.

"Axel Shooter!" Nanoha shouted.

"Plasma Lancer!" Fate added.

A storm of shining pink and yellow energy bolts shot towards the Angel. Instantly, a blue magic circle snapped into existence and intercepted the barrage. However, the girls were by now quite familiar with the defensive Barriers employed by Angels. Even as Nanoha and Fate's attacks were exploding against the shield, Shamal and Vita were leaping into action.

"Swallow Flier!" Vita shouted.

She swung Graf Eisen and sent a ball of seething orange energy hurtling through the air. At the same time, Shamal opened a portal. One end opened in front of Vita's projectile; the other appeared inside of Zeruel's Barrier, facing its Core. The blazing sphere of attack magic shot through the portal... and impacted a second Barrier that appeared behind the first, sandwiching Shamal's portal between two defensive walls.

"What?" Vita said.

More Barriers sprang up in front of the Angel, expanding in a stack in front of it like an unfolding accordion. The onrushing Barriers began plowing through the ground like a battering ram, gouging a trench into the edge of the bay. Signum immediately leapt into action, tackling Vita out of the way of the oncoming wall of energy; a moment later it rushed past them, pulverizing the ground where Vita had been standing.

"I don't believe it..." Shamal said. "How can we fight against that? How can we possibly fight against that power?"

"The damage!" Signum said, spitting out a mouthful of dirt. "It's in a line!"

Fate understood. When an Angel raised its Barrier, a blue magic circle appeared in front of it. Though the magic circle only seemed to cover its front side, the Angel's entire body was enclosed in a spherical shield. However, when Zeruel had extended its Barrier forwards, it had only gouged a linear path in the ground instead of a crater. That meant that while the visible portion of the Barrier had been bolstered, the back and sides were still only one layer thick. A frontal assault would never work, but maybe...

"Plasma Lancer!" Fate called.

She summoned more balls of crackling lightning, but this time did not launch them directly at the Angel. Instead, she sent them flying past its body on both sides. As soon as the spheres of energy were behind Zeruel, she focused her will on Bardiche. Her attacks stopped mid-air, then reversed direction, hurtling towards Zeruel's back. As Signum had said, the Barrier there was still only a single layer thick. However, it was a strong layer; the numerous blasts exploding against it still did not penetrate.

"We need more firepower." Fate said. "Nanoha — use Divine Buster."

"Got it." Nanoha said.

She leveled Raising Heart at the Angel, and pink energy began building up at the tip of the staff. However, before she could complete it, the Angel abruptly retracted its stack of Barriers. The long stack of magic circles snapped back to the Angel's chest like a rubber band, so that only the single original circle was visible. The Angel then surged forwards, rushing down the trench it had gouged out of the ground with incredible speed. It blew past the startled Magical Girls in an instant.

"You won't get away!" Nanoha shouted at the Angel's back. "Divine Buster!"

She swivelled to follow the Angel's movement and fired her charged attack down the trench after it. Before it struck, however, the Angel's magic circle appeared to rotate around its body to covers it back. It then stretched into a stack again, crashing headlong into Nanoha's oncoming beam of energy. The lance of pink magic blasted harmlessly against an impossibly thick cylinder of layered shields; Zeruel could only extend a line of multiple Barriers in one direction, but it could choose which direction. As soon as Nanoha's beam attack had faded, the Angel retracted its Barriers once more and continued speeding onwards into the distance.

"Unbelievable." Nanoha said. "Lindy, we have a problem. The Angel ignored us. It's heading towards Tokyo-3 — and it's a lot faster out of the water."

"We see it; the MAGI are tracking its position." Lindy's voice came over the earpieces worn by the Magical Girls. "I recommend you portal back to the perimeter of Tokyo-3 and re-engage the Angel there."

"Acknowledged." Signum said.

"It took us by surprise this time." Vita said. "That won't happen again. Next time, we'll be ready for it."

* * *

Shamal opened a portal that took the Magical Girls directly back to Tokyo-3, once more in the path of the invading Angel. They positioned themselves on the outskirts of the city and prepared themselves for a second attempt at stopping it.

"The Angel still picking up speed." Lindy reported. "That could be a problem. If it ignores you again and goes straight for the city, it could do a lot of damage before you can stop it."

"I have a plan." Shamal said. "As soon as it comes into sight, I'll open a portal in front of it. The Angel will have to stop and change direction to get around it. That's when we can hit it."

"And if the Angel's going too fast to stop itself in time, well, you can just snap the portal closed and guillotine the damn thing." Vita pitched in.

"While I block the Angel's advance with my portals, the other girls will hit it from multiple directions at once." Shamal said. "We'll break that Barrier."

"Good plan." Lindy said. "Get ready, because the MAGI report the Angel should be coming into range any moment now.

"I see it!" Nanoha said, pointing.

The Angel had built up considerable speed. It was continuing to move in a straight line, using its stack of powerful Barriers to simply plow through anything unfortunate enough to be in its way. A trail of destruction was left in its wake.

"I'm opening a portal now." Shamal said.

A circle of glowing green magic appeared in the air between them and the rapidly approaching Angel. The Angel immediately began decelerating, apparently recognizing the danger posed by Shamal's magic. Though one would expect something so large to have too much momentum to stop easily, the Angel's magic allowed it to defy the ordinary laws of physics, bringing it to a halt safely in front of Shamal's portal despite its impressive bulk.

"Fate and I will go left." Nanoha said. "Vita, Signum, you take the right."

Before the girls could implement their plan, however, the Angel took action. Infernal white flames kindled inside the hollow eyesockets of its skull-like face. A moment later, beams of light stabbed out from the holes, joining together into a single spear of devastating energy. The beam struck the ground in front of Shamal's portal, creating an explosion so massive that the shockwave broke windows in the city behind the Magical Girls. They quickly raised defensive shields as a wave of heat rolled over them and shards of debris pelted down.

"I don't believe it!" Lindy shouted. "It just penetrated eighteen layers of armor plating with a single shot!"

The haze of the explosion slowly dissipated, allowing the girls to view their opponent once more. The incredible intensity of the eye beams had carved a gaping tunnel into the ground, and the Angel had begun to descend into it. Previous Angels had tried to travel to the center of Tokyo-3 before attempting to penetrate the GeoFront, because that was where the dome was thinnest and they had the greatest chance of breaking through. Zeruel, however, seemed to be confident in its ability to carve its own path into the GeoFront — and not unreasonably so, given the apparent destructive power of its eye beams.

"Shamal!" Nanoha called. "Can you open a portal inside the tunnel? Block its path?"

"I'm trying!" Shamal said. "It's not working! I think it's because... I can't open a portal in a space that's already occupied by something else. I think the Angel has extended its Barrier to fill up the tunnel so that there's no room for me to open a portal."

The ground trembled, and a fresh gout of smoke and flame blew out of the end of the tunnel.

"GeoFront armor has been breached!" Lindy said. "It's breaking in!"

"I'll portal us down to the GeoFront." Shamal said. "We'll intercept it down there."

She opened a portal in front of the Magical Girls, and they all rushed through, heading underground to attempt to face the Angel for the third time.

* * *

They girls emerged inside the GeoFront just in time to see a portion of the dome collapse. Fortunately, because the Angel had still been a considerable distance from the city when it carved the tunnel, the damage was to a lower section of one of the far walls of the dome rather than to the upper portion from which the buildings of Tokyo-3 hung.

"We have to stop the Angel here." Nanoha said. "If it ignores us and rushes forwards again, it'll destroy NERV."

"This time, I'll give it something it can't ignore." Vita said. "I'm going to hit it head-on. I don't care how many Barriers it has; I'll break through them all! Missile Hammer!"

Orange magic gathered around the head of Graf Eisen. On one side, it gathered into a sharp, piercing cone of focused destructive power; on the other, it began burning like a rocket engine, propelling Vita forwards at great speed. The Angel saw her coming and began extending its stack of magic circles towards her, but Vita didn't slow down even as she approached the wall of defensive magic at break-neck speeds. There was an almighty crash as she impacted, and the other girls were blinded by a brilliant flash as Vita's magic struck Zeruel's Barriers. When the cloud of mixed blue and orange sparks had faded, they saw that she had actually broken through the first few of the Angel's Barrier. Vita was continuing to press Graf Eisen forwards, a look of grim determination on her face; and as the other girls watched, another one of the blue magic circles shattered into blue shards under the relentless pressure of the burning orange magic drilling into it.

Zeruel ignored Vita when she first flew at it; however, when her magic began breaking through its Barriers, it began to show a reaction. Its skeletal eyesockets filled with blazing light as it prepared to unleash the destructive eye beam that it had used to blast its way into the GeoFront. However, Nanoha had begun summoning her own magical power the moment she saw Vita rushing to attack; and when the Angel released a blazing gout of fire from its eyes, Nanoha fired a blast of her own to counter it.

"Divine Buster!"

Nanoha's beam of pink energy collided with the torrent of power released by the Angel. Though Nanoha's magic initially held back the flood of hot white fire pouring from the Angel's eyes, the incredible strength of the Angel's offensive energy began overwhelming her own. The beam began pushing Nanoha's Divine Buster back, towards the tip of Raising Heart. However, Nanoha didn't stop struggling, even as the heat of the encroaching beam began singing the fringes of her Barrier Jacket. As long as she could keep holding back the Angel's attack, it would be unable to target Vita, who was still steadily drilling her way through the Angel's Barriers. As thick as Zeruel's defenses were, Vita had been making steady progress through them, pressing closer and closer to its body. Only four magic circles still blocked her path... three... two... one...

Nanoha couldn't hold back Zeruel's fire any longer. The beam of white energy surged forwards, devouring her own faltering pink beam and enveloping her. Nanoha raised a protective shield around herself at the last moment, but it was simply impossible for her magic to withstand the Angel's overwhelming might. There was a large explosion, then Nanoha tumbled to the ground, flaming shreds of her Barrier Jacket falling around her. As she hit the ground of the GeoFront, there was a shower of blue sparks, and Vita penetrated the Angel's final Barrier. The young Magical Girl leapt forwards with a shout, driving the magic-laden tip of her hammer for the Angel's large, exposed Core. The last glowing embers of Zeruel's last barrage of energy were still fading from its eyes; there was no way it could charge up another blast before Vita's attack hit home. Vita gave a yell of triumph —

— which abruptly gave way to a shout of pain, as something struck her from the side. Two long, thin, ribbon-like arms had dropped down from Zeruel's shoulders and extended to strike the girl moments before she would have hit the Core. Though the Angel's arms looked flimsy, the magic imbued in them made their structure strong, their movements rapid, and their edges razor-sharp. Their rapid impacts knocked Vita away before Graf Eisen could connect with the Angel's Core, hurling her to the ground with blood spraying from deep cuts where the Angel had cut through her Barrier Jacket as though it was ordinary fabric. Not satisfied with the damage it had already inflicted, the Angel then sent one of its arms slicing down like a guillotine, aiming to cut Vita's head off.

"Violet Lightning Flash!" Signum roared.

She had begun moving forwards to engage the Angel the moment Vita had pierced its Barriers. Now, seeing the danger her friend was in, she altered the course of her flight. Bright red flames wrapped around Laevatein, and the magically enhanced blade tore through the Angel's arms. The severed portions dissolved into blue slush, which rained down harmlessly on Vita. She then turned around, seeking the Angel's Core; but since she had altered course to save Vita, she was no longer directly in front of it, and the Angel's rib bones protected its Core from the sides. Signum began gathering energy for an attack strong enough to break through the bony material, believing she was safe because the Angel's arms had been severed and its head wasn't flexible enough for it to turn its eye beam on her. However, the Angel did something she wasn't expecting: it suddenly accelerated forwards, physically body-slamming Signum. Its large bulk hit her like a freight train, sending her sailing backwards through the air, into to range of its fiery eyes.

As the Angel unleashed its devastating blast, a green portal opened in front of it. Shamal caught the beam before it could strike Signum, and the paired portal sent it straight back at the Angel. Zeruel immediately stopped putting power into the beam, its eyesockets overflowing with held-back flame, but the energy it had already released was enough to do considerable damage. Though the Angel's ribs protected its Core, the force of the explosion shattered those bony projections, causing them to crumble away in a slew of blue sparks.

Zeruel's eyes flashed, and it released the remaining energy that had built up within them. Shamal opened another portal in front of herself, but she had misjudged the beam's trajectory. Zeruel had aimed not directly at her, but at ground below. As the blast detonated, a pillar of flame shot up from the impact point, and Shamal was engulfed in the midpoint of a cross-shaped explosion. Taken by surprise, she didn't manage to raise a shield in time, and the sudden inferno scalded her through her Barrier Jacket. She fell to ground, trailing smoke and flame, and the sky was left empty. Zeruel cast its eyes about, looking for the lone Magical Girl that had not yet engaged it.

Fate stood on the ground next to Nanoha. When the Angel's first attack had knocked Nanoha from the sky, all thoughts of engaging it had fled from Fate's mind; her only concern was checking that her precious friend was still alive. Nanoha did still live, but she was severely injured; large portions of her Barrier Jacket had burned away, and the skin beneath was charred. Seeing Nanoha's condition, Fate's mind had been overtaken by a rage the likes of which she had never before felt. She had focused all of that anger into Bardiche, focused it into her magic. Now yellow energy boiled around her like a condensed thunderstorm. She leveled Bardiche at the Angel and screamed, pushing all her strength into the attack.

"Trident Smasher!"

An enormous beam of yellow power erupted from Bardiche. It forked as it roared through the air at the Angel, splitting into three beams of incredible intensity, all focused on the Angel's glittering Core. The beams struck, and the Angel was engulfed in an explosion so massive that it caused the entirety of the GeoFront to tremble. Zeruel was obscured at the center of a roiling cloud of debris created by the shockwave.

"Did... it work...?" Nanoha asked feebly.

Slowly, the smoke began to clear. Zeruel's body had been heavily damaged by the immeasurable quantities of burning magic energy that Fate had struck it will. Rivers of blue blood fell like waterfalls from numerous wounds. However, as for Fate's target, the Angel's Core... at the last instant, a clamshell-like shield of bone had snapped closed around the Core, and not even Fate's threefold attack had managed to pierce it. Fate slumped to the ground, having exhausted all her energy in the failed attack. The Angel slowly moved towards her, its body regenerating as it approached. As soon as its ribbon-like arms had repaired themselves, the Angel extended them towards the two girls. The end of the arms split into crude hands, two fingers and a thumb, which seized the two Magical Girls. Zeruel hoisted them into the air and began squeezing them mercilessly. The pressure forced the air from their lungs, preventing them from even screamin.

"Graf Eisen — Gigantform!" Vita called. "Destruction Hammer!"

Vita was bleeding badly, too weak to stand. But when she saw the other girls in danger, she summoned up what power she had left and poured it into Graf Eisen. The hammer grew to gigantic size and the handle extended, allowing Vita to slam it against the Angel's back. The force of her hammer strikes made the Angel's entire body tremble, and great gouts of blue blood erupted from the point of impact. Zeruel dropped Nanoha and Fate like rag dolls and turned around its arms so they pointed behind it. The arms extended rapidly, shooting forwards like spears; and Vita, too feeble to move, could do nothing to dodge them.

A moment before the razor-edged arms would have pierced her, a portal opened in front of her. As soon as the arms had passed through, it snapped shut, severing them. Zeruel turned around once more, refocusing its gaze on Shamal. Though portions of her Barrier Jacket were still smoldering from the fire that had washed over her, she had regained enough focus to employ her magic once more. However, while were well-suited to defending her friends, she had no means of actually attacking the Angel. She could do nothing as Zeruel patiently waited for its arms to regenerate. As soon as the razor-edged tips had reformed, it sent them hurtling towards Signum. Shamal was prepared to open a portal to defend herself, but the Angel sent its arms curving in opposite directions, striking at her from two sides at once. Shamal caught one with a portal, but the other slipped in under her guard and skewered her, punching through her Barrier Jacket and the flesh beneath with no resistance. Shamal cried out in pain as the Angel's appendage pierced her side.

Signum rushed to the stricken Magical Girl's aid, severing the arm with Laevatein. She then took a moment to rekindle the magic flames coating the blade and re-energize her flight spell, then leaped towards the Angel. However, she hadn't completely thrown off the effects of the hard hit she'd taken earlier; her movement was considerably slower. She was still moving towards the Angel when there was a blue shimmer in the air and a magic circle inscribed itself in front of her — Zeruel had raised its Barrier once more. Before Signum could react, more Barriers formed, extending forwards into a battering ram the plowed her into the ground and pressed her flat against the dirt. The stack of Barriers then retracted, leaving Signum at the bottom of a shallow cylindrical cut-out of compressed dirt in the ground. Though she was clearly injured, Signum fought through the pain and drew herself back up to her feet.

"Fire... Dragon... Flash!" Signum managed to say.

She flung a lance of red fire from Laevatein at the towering Angel. The magic exploded impressively against the Angel's Barrier, engulfing it in a sheet of crackling flames; but breaking one Barrier meant nothing when there were dozens more beneath it. The stack of Barriers extended once more, pounding Signum into the ground again; harder, this time, embedding her deeper in the ground. And still she tried to pull herself to her feet once more, leaning on her sword for support as she tried to drag herself out of the grave the Angel had created for her.

Zeruel drew back from the injured Magical Girls. It appeared annoyed, as much as such an emotion could be said to apply to an Angel at all, by the unexpected persistence of the Magical Girls in the face of its overwhelming might. But it seemed the Angel was determined to put an end to any further resistance with a single strike. Annihilating light poured once more from the Zeruel's eyesockets. But this time, instead of being focused into a single coherent beam, it spread out over an area. A field of pillars of brilliant white fire erupted from the ground across the GeoFront. Horizontal arms spread out from the pillars as they rose towards the ceiling, giving the explosions the shape of crosses. The field of crosses gave the ground of the GeoFront the appearance of a giant graveyard for the Magical Girls lying prone on the ground below.

Slowly, as though with exaggerated deliberation, the Angel turned towards Central Dogma. Its eye beams lanced out, punching a flaming hole into the side of the black pyramid. Zeruel floated over to it, then began to descend.

* * *

"Girls!" Lindy shouted into the comm. "Girls! Can you hear me!"

"It's no good." Shigeru said. "The MAGI say that they're in no condition to fight anymore. They're all unconscious, or else..."

"They are not dead!" Lindy shouted, tears in her eyes. "They can't die! Not like this!"

The Command Center suddenly shuddered violently, causing the lights to flicker for a moment.

"All of the bulkheads have been breached!" Makoto said. "The central shaft is wide open! The Angel is descending! It's heading... heading..."

"My God!" Maya cried. "It's heading _here_! It's coming right for us!"

"Evacuate the Command Center." Precia said.

Her voice perfectly calm, as though this was an order she gave every day. When she saw everyone staring at her in shock rather than rushing to obey, however, she sharpened her tone.

"_Now_." Precia said. "This area is no longer safe."

"The MAGI..." Maya began.

"Cannot be relocated." Precia said. "You, however, can. I suggest you do so immediately."

"Come on, people!" Fuyutsuki shouted. "We're relocating our operations to the backup Command Center. Move!"

The bridge officers had never before heard Fuyutsuki raise the level of his voice. The shock of it broke them out of their stunned confusion, and they began running towards the room's exits. Fuyutsuki began moving towards the nearest exit as well, then stopped and sent a questioning glance back at Precia. The Commander had not moved an inch from her normal post.

"Go on ahead, Professor." Precia said lightly. "I am putting you in charge of the backup Command Center for the remainder of the battle. I will remain here, to greet our most rude uninvited guest."

Then the Commander smiled. And although Fuyutsuki knew that the enormously powerful Angel tearing its way through the heart of NERV might be only seconds away, it was the expression on Precia's face that made him turn around and bolt for the door as fast as his old legs could carry him.

* * *

Less then a minute passed between the moment when the evacuation of the Command Center was announced and the moment when Zeruel arrived. The Angel burst through the wall of the Command Center, causing the holographic battlefield display to dissolve it static. Though the room had a spacious design, the massive Angel's bulk filled nearly the entire space. The hollow eye-sockets in its skeletal mask seemed to take in the scene: the three bulky MAGI computers, the empty computer stations, and the single woman who had not evacuated. Precia Testarossa stood at her station, staring defiantly back at the intruder.

"You will not be allowed to advance any further." Precia said, the words directed at the monstrous Angel as frigid and emotionless as the tone she used in ordinary conversation. "Nor will I permit you to damage the MAGI."

The Angel showed no sign of understanding Precia's words. White light gathered within its eye sockets as it prepared to unleash a devastating magical blast. And Precia stared back, twin points of brilliant white light kindling within her own pupils as magic roared forth from her like a tsunami. She simultaneously summoned three protective magic barriers, which enclosed the MAGI within thick shells of purple energy that not even the terrifying might of Zeruel would be able to penetrate. At the same time, she raised her right arm in a sharp, slashing motion. A thick cord of purple lightning sprang from her fingers, and the Angel did not even have time to raise its Barrier before the attack struck it. Precia's magic whip tore a deep gash in the Angel's body, just below the bony mask and above the shell covering its Core. Zeruel screamed, its voice containing equal measures surprise and pain, and the destructive energy that it had been gathering fizzled into nothing.

Precia showed no reaction to the sound of the Angel's cry, nor to the spray of sparking blue blood that gushed from the wound she had inflicted. However, when the injured Angel began thrashing about, doing further damage to the already structurally compromised Command Center, she raised her other hand. Another protective magical barrier appeared around her; then all four of the barriers began to expand. As she poured more magic into them, they fused together into an inexorably advancing wall that pushed the Angel back through the tunnel it had blasted in Central Dogma, back into the open air of the GeoFront. Precia rose into the air and floated after the Angel at a leisurely pace, the aura of magic around her making her shine like a malevolent star.

Despite its increasingly desperate attempts to resist, the Angel picked up speed as it was forced backwards through the tunnel. By the time it reached the end, it had picked up so much momentum that it was hurled like a cannonball through the air. It landed on its back with an enormous crash at the same moment Precia rose up into the air of the GeoFront. She dispelled the magical barrier she had used to batter Zeruel as she ascended to the peak of the black pyramid of Central Dogma.

Zeruel drew itself back up, its magic allowing it to flip easily upright despite its stumpy limbs. The wound that Precia had cut across the Angel's chest sealed itself and vanished in a crackle of blue energy. At the same time, white fire began to gather once more within the Angel's eye sockets as it tried a second time to unleash the devastating beam attack that had annihilated the defenses around Tokyo-3 with ease. Precia raised her right arm and extended her index finger at the Angel at an almost leisurely speed, at though she was entirely unconcerned at the inferno of energy swelling within the Angel's eyes. Then a massive purple lightning bolt erupted from her finger. It forked as it covered the distance between Precia and the Angel, and each branch of sizzling, crackling power plunged directly into one of the Angel's eye sockets.

After a moment, the lightning bolt faded. In the next moment, jets of blue blood began spraying from the Angel's gouged eye sockets. The Angel did not scream this time; it did not appear to be able to. It drew in air, as though preparing to bellow; but when it opened its mouth, a veritable waterfall of blue blood gushed out. Precia hadn't just poked out the Angel's eyes; she'd poured a current of highly destructive magical energy directly into its body. Her magic was still breaking the Angel's body down just as fast as it could heal itself.

As the energy Precia had poured into the Angel's body slowly exhausted itself, the Angel drew back upright. Blue sparks crawled across its entire body as it used the enormous magical reserves of its Core to regenerate. Though Precia's attack had temporarily incapacitated it, her magic had not been able to break apart the Angel's well-protected Core, and an Angel could eventually heal from anything so longs as its Core remained intact. The Angel's eyes, which had been directly impacted by Precia's lightning bolt, seemed to suffer the worst residual effects; waterfalls of blue blood continued to fall from the sockets even when the rest of the damage to the Angel's body had been regenerated.

Its primary weapon clearly non-functional, the Angel extended its whip-like tentacles from its stubby arms. It wasted no time in Despite the evident damage to its eyes, the Angel did not appear to be impaired by blindness; it was not using mere human senses. Zeruel's left whip scythed through the air with perfect accuracy, coming down in an arc that would cut Precia in half lengthwise if it connected. However, as the Angel's whip-like arm approached, Precia clenched her hand and a whip of her own materialized there. A cord of purple energy lashed out from her whip, easily tearing the Angel's flimsy arm in half. At the same time, however, the Angel extended its right arm. The cutting edge shot towards Precia like a spear. At the last moment, a magic barrier suddenly sprang up in front of Precia. She didn't even flinch as the Angel's arm slammed viciously against it. The magic circle flashed at the impact and released a bolt of lightning which traveled back up the Angel's arm to its shoulder. The arm crumbled to ash, and there was a spurt of blue blood from the Angel's arm stump.

Zeruel backed up slightly and raised its mighty Barrier. More Barriers then began flashing into existence in front of it, forming a cylinder of blue defensive magic that rushed towards Precia like a battering ram. Precia didn't even attempt to dodge, instead standing her ground and pouring more energy into her own magical shield. When the Angel's rapidly extending rod of layered shields finally impacted, the sheer force of the magic pushed Precia backwards like a rag doll. The cylinder drove towards the pyramid of Central Dogma, attempting to crush Precia against the black wall behind her. However, the farther the Barriers extended from Zeruel's body, the weaker they became. The speed at which Precia was being forced backwards rapidly decreased; and by the time she had reached the pyramid, she had regained her composure. As her feet lightly touched the slope of the pyramid, she pressed both of her hands against her shield and sent a surge of magic into it. Her magic circle flared brilliantly, and the Barrier pressing up against it shattered into glittering shards. Before Zeruel could react, Precia pushed off with her feet and began flying straight towards the Angel. Barrier after Barrier broke to pieces as Precia barreled through the Angel's overextended defenses like a cannonball. The Barriers became thicker as she approached the Angel's body, but Precia concentrated her power into a wedge that pierced all resistance. She erupted through the final Barrier and slammed into Zeruel's chest, her magic giving the impact such force that the Angel was knocked onto its back.

Precia raised one hand, and her whip-like Device rematerialized. She swung the crackling lash of energy downwards into the thin line where the two halves of the shell that had closed around the Angel's Core met. The tip of the whip dug into the tiny gap, then forked into two. With agonizing slowness, the tips spread farther apart, prying the Angel's last defense open like a clamshell. Though she was only able to reveal a small wedge of the Core, it was enough. Still holding her whip in one hand, Precia dropped to her knees and thrust her other arm into the red crystal up to the elbow. Zeruel screamed in agony as cracks spread out from where Precia had penetrated it. Then the cracks began to shine with an internal purple light as Precia began channeling her magic directly into the Angel's Core, ripping it apart from within. There was a tremendous explosion as a second sun bloomed within Zeruel's torso, bathing the entire GeoFront in an unearthly purple light and causing pebble-sized fragments of red crystal to pelt the dome's far walls. A moment later, the deceased Angel's body melted into a lake of blue slush. And Precia rose up into the air above the Angel's rapidly evaporating remains, surrounded by an aura of flickering magic, looking like the advent of a Goddess of storm and fury.

* * *

The MAGI located the Magical Girls were lying amidst the devastated scenery in the GeoFront, and medical teams were dispatched immediately. Miraculously, all five girls were still alive, though all were severely wounded. They were immediately rushed to the infirmary to receive treatment. The girls were unconscious when the were brought in; upon seeing their condition, Dr. Akagi immediately gave them sedatives to keep them unconscious. It was hours before the woke again; and even with the medical work that had been done, Dr. Akagi had to give them painkillers before the were able to speak.

"The Angel...?" Nanoha asked.

"Destroyed." Dr. Akagi said.

"By who?" Signum inquired. "I thought I was the last to be taken down, that all of the other girls had already fallen. Who..."

The door to the infirmary opened, and Commander Precia Testarossa strode imperiously into the room.

"_I_ defeated the Angel." she said.

Precia snapped her fingers, sending a sparkling mote of magic drifting through the air.

"You... you're a Magical Girl, too!" Nanoha said

"Mother?" Fate asked, an expression of wonderment on her face.

"All our power combined could not defeat the Angel." Signum said. "For you to have prevailed alone... your strength must be truly incredible."

"You should be more concerned with your _weakness_ than my strength." Precia said coldly. "I am very disappointed in you all. It was your duty to stop the Angel, and you failed. This kind of performance is simply inexcusable. You should all be ashamed to have lost to an opponent I was able to defeat with only the most meager exertion of my power. I will not tolerate another failure such as this, do you understand? In fact, you should consider yourselves lucky that I do not terminate your employments immediately. What is the point in even having you fight the Angels, if you are only going to lose and force me to handle them myself? Indeed, you should consider yourself lucky to still be alive. Had I not had the foresight to grant myself magical powers, there would have been no one left to stop the Angel after your defeat. It would have penetrated Terminal Dogma, initiated Third Impact, and brought about the end of the world. Do you understand? Your incompetence today would have wiped out the entire human race, if not for me. The blood of billions of innocents would be on your hands, if not for me. I hope you all think about that _very_ carefully while you are recuperating."

Precia cast her gaze back and forth across the Magical Girls. Shocked by the Commander's caustic words, none of them dared meet her eyes. After a long, uncomfortable moment, Precia turned on her heels and left the room, letting the door slam shut behind. She then proceeded to walk directly to Dr. Akagi's office.

"How long until the girls are once more combat ready, doctor?" Precia asked.

"Their magic lets them heal fast." Ritsuko said. "They'll be fully recovered by the end of the week, and probably in good enough condition to fight against an Angel a few days before that, if absolutely necessary."

"But for the next several days, I will be NERV's only defense should an Angel appear within that time frame?" Precia asked.

"Yes." Dr. Akagi admitted. "Though the odds of two Angels awakening in such a short period of time are low, and you seem to have had no problem dealing with Zeruel yourself, so I'm not sure about the reason for your concern."

"I am not concerned." Precia corrected her. "I am _displeased_. I have five Magical Girls in my employ precisely so I would not have to personally intervene in combat with Angels. No doubt I put on quite a show for the old men at SEELE — with our MAGI hacked, they can use their override codes to access our records of the battle. They are probably already having their own MAGI units analyze and dissect my strength, abilities, and tactics, looking for weaknesses to exploit when they make their move against me. It makes me wonder about the usefulness of keeping them around at all. Tell me, how long until Fate has recovered enough for me to properly discipline her for her failure?"

Ritsuko flinched and looked away.

"I'm sure she did the best she could..." Ritsuko began.

"She did, did she?" Precia said. "Because if this loss were the result of her laziness and general failure to live up to her full potential, than that would be a problem that might be rectified through a sharp lashing and a stern reminder of her duty. If, however, she gave the very best effort she could and still lost, that would make her utterly worthless. Garbage that should be discarded immediately so it stops weighing us down. Is that what you think, doctor?"

Ritsuko lowered her head.

"I'm sure you're right." she said, trying to keep the loathing out of her voice. "I'm going to release the girls from the infirmary tonight, with instructions to spend the next couple of days resting. A day or two wait should be enough to let you beat your daughter without any risk of accidentally killing her."

Precia stared at Ritsuko for a moment with her cold, compassionless eyes, then gave the doctor a sharp strike across the cheek.

"Call her Fate." Precia said. "Do _not_ call her my daughter."

The Commander strode away without waiting for a response.

* * *

Over the course of the day, the girls' depleted magic reserves slowly replenished, allowing them to begin healing themselves. By nightfall, they were all in stable enough condition for Ritsuko to release them from the infirmary, though she strongly advised them to come in for daily checkups over the next two weeks and not to waste their magic on anything other than healing until she approved it. After assuring Ritsuko that they would follow her instruction, the girls were sent back to their homes. Nanoha and Fate began the walk back to Lindy's apartment. While they were waiting for one of the lifts that would take them up out of the GeoFront, Fate spoke.

"Nanoha..." Fate said.

"Hm?" Nanoha asked.

"When we were fighting Zeruel, I thought that we really might lose this time." Fate said. "That we really might die. And I realized... that if that happened, my biggest regret would be never confessing to you."

"Fate...?" Nanoha said.

"There's no longer any doubt in my mind." Fate said. "I love you the same way you love me. Romantically, and unreservedly. With all my heart."

Nanoha tried to speak again, but Fate raised a delicate finger to Nanoha's lips, silencing her. Fate slowly brought her head in close, until Nanoha could see nothing but her large, beautiful eyes. Then Fate leaned forwards, bringing their lips together. Nanoha raised her arms and embraced her, and it seemed like the moment would last forever.

Finally, Fate took a step backwards, breaking the kiss. Nanoha felt herself blushing as Fate gave her a radiant smile.

"Will you be my girlfriend, Nanoha?" Fate asked.

"Yes." Nanoha said. "Of course."

The two blushing girls held hands as they walked the rest of the way back to Lindy's place.

* * *

"My first real battle, and I have emerged triumphant." Precia said. "An Angel that all of our Magical Girls combined could not combat, and I defeated it singlehandedly. What do you think, Fuyutsuki? Rather impressive, was I not?"

Impressive it was. But also frightening. When they had first discovered that Intelligent Devices could only successfully bond with pubescent girls, Fuyutsuki had feared the consequences of putting so much power into the hands of such young children. They were immature, he had told Precia then; lacking the wisdom and temperament to use such enormous power responsibly. But now, having seen the powers of a Magical Girl wielded by Precia, he thought perhaps he had been wrong. Looking at the yong Magical Girls, he saw innocence, naivety, and the sincere belief that they could use their abilities for the good of the world. Looking at Precia, he saw only ruthlessness, an unyielding determination to destroy everything that stood in her way. The girls had said after their battle with Matariel that they would never use their powers against fellow humans; but Precia, Fuyutsuki had no trouble imagining her reigning down annihilating lightning upon the old men of SEELE with the same blank expression she'd worn when she shattered the Angel's Core.

As was so often the case when speaking with his former student lately, Fuyutsuki hid his true feelings behind a facade of humor.

"I don't know, I was a bit disappointed." he said lightheartedly. "You went about it so directly. I was hoping I'd get to hear you shouting out fancy attack names like the girls."

"You should know me better than that, professor." Precia chided him. "I would not make a spectacle of myself like an adolescent child even if I was capable of using spells the way they do."

"I don't quite get your meaning." Fuyutsuki said. "Are you saying the way you use magic is different from them?"

"Fundamentally so." Precia said. "The Angels bound within them have been lobotomized, but still retain some degree of functionality. Hence the name _Intelligent_ Devices. When one of the girls wants to perform magic, her pet Angel does the difficult job of directing its magic towards a specific purpose, then hands the result to the Magical Girl as a pre-packaged spell: shout "Divine Buster" to attack, "Protection" to defend, "Flier Fin" to fly, as so on. The more intelligence the Angel is allowed to retain, the more effectively it can serve its purpose as an Intelligent Device. Hayate had the most powerful spells because she had the most assistance from the Angel whose power she was using. Of course, you know how that ended."

"Poorly." Fuyutsuki said.

"To the contrary." Precia said. "I once had the MAGI calculate the probability of a Magical Girl surviving the awakening of her Intelligent Device, and Hayate should consider herself extremely fortunate to have come through with nothing more than paraplegia. I am not willing to take such a risk with my own life. Before undergoing the bonding procedure myself, I instructed Dr. Akagi to modify SEELE's procedure for converting Cores to Intelligent Devices, so that its mind would be not merely limited but entirely destroyed. Though this has eliminated the risk of it taking me over, it has also removed its ability to assist me with channeling my magic. It can do nothing but provide me with raw magical energy, which I myself must mold into a usable form."

A useable form, she said. Fuyutsuki realized then why her Device had manifested not as a staff or sword like Raising Heart or Laevatein, but as a whip. Precia had modeled it off of the whip she used to punish Fate.

"It is time to move things forward, Fuyutsuki." Precia said. "We can no longer tolerate the continued presence of the SEELE spy in our midst. The potential harm of any treachery was limited while the Magical Girls were intercepting the Angels; but if I must enter battle myself, well, that is a different matter entirely. Betrayal at a critical moment in a battle against a powerful Angel might endanger my life. No, the mole within our ranks must be found before the next Angel attacks. This must be our top priority, even above repairs to Central Dogma."

Fuyutsuki nodded mutely, not daring to interrupt.

"We will find the source of the poison rotting us from within, no matter what it takes." Precia continued. "The spy will not be allowed to slip through our nets again. No stone will be left unturned, and no person spared investigation because they are above suspicion — in fact, I'll begin the interrogations with _you_, Fuyutsuki. Be at me office tomorrow at noon."

Even though she said it casually, Fuyutsuki knew it was an order. He was mostly unconcerned, as he had been so intimately involved with the running of NERV that Precia had to know that she'd never have gotten as far she had if he'd been a mole. But not entirely unconcerned. Knowing what he did about the depths of Precia's cruelty, he could never be entirely unconcerned when she cast her gaze on him. For instance, he was almost certain that the Commander would never lash him for a failure the way she did Fate — but the mere fact that he felt a need to include the "almost" was enough to send a cold shiver up his spine.

"Yes, Commander." Fuyutsuki said.

"The investigation will start at the top of the hierarchy and move downwards." Precia said. "Obviously, the lower the position of the mole, the less damage they are in a position to cause; and therefore the less the risk of taking a while longer to find them. The spy is likely someone in Central Dogma, given that they were able to access the MAGI during the blackout. Start a list, Fuyutsuki: Major Harlaown, Lieutenant Ibuki, Lieutenant Hyuga, Lieutenant Aoba... oh, and put our guest Clyde at the top of the list. I doubt his superiors at SEELE were foolish enough to tell him the name of their second spy; but he might have deduced it himself over the course of his observations, or the spy might have unwisely established contact with him. Unlikely, but worth investigating. And if that fails... I will have to do it the hard way."


	29. Finding Judas

**Chapter 29: Finding Judas**

There was a spy in NERV.

Someone under Precia Testarossa's command was working for her enemies, the old men on the Council that ran SEELE. Someone had caused a power outage in NERV and, in the ensuing confusion, changed the MAGI's master override codes, giving the old men the ability to take over NERV's systems.

This treachery had gone on for far too long already; Precia didn't intend to tolerate it for a moment longer. She had set aside all of her other responsibilities in order to devote her full attention to the pursuit of the investigation. Means, motive, and opportunity were the three keys to catching a criminal. Motive would be the least helpful; though there were many in NERV with personal grudges against the Commander, there were also plenty more who could have had their loyalties swayed by promises of large cash payments from SEELE. Means and opportunity, those were the keys. Who had the opportunity to reprogram the MAGI during the blackout? And who had the knowledge necessary to change the master override codes? Based on these questions, Precia narrowed her list of suspects down to a shortlist of people who had sufficient knowledge of the MAGI, and access to the computers during the blackout, to have performed the reprogramming.

At the top of the list was Vice-Commander Fuyutsuki, and he was the first person Precia had investigated. Not that she really considered him a probable suspect; the professor was her oldest and most trusted confidante. Rather, the interrogation was a symbol of her new resolve. She had known since Clyde's arrival that the old men had a spy in NERV, but her earlier investigations had failed to uncover any hint as to who it might be. This was a significant failure, and Precia did not tolerate even insignificant errors to be made by others or by herself. She was going to do the investigation properly this time — no stone would be left unturned, and no suspect would be overlooked. After Fuyutsuki was, as she expected, cleared of any wrongdoing, she turned her attentions to Clyde: the attention-grabbing, easily-spotted spy that SEELE had sent as a distraction from their actual spy.

Precia had Clyde brought to her meeting room and took the chair across from him.

"Hello, Commander." Clyde said. "Finally decided to try turning the thumbscrews on me?"

"Hardly." Precia said. "SEELE would not send an agent who could be broken by physical duress into my hands, and I do not torture for no reason."

"That's not what I've heard." Clyde said glibly. "Or do you have reason to suspect that your daughter is withholding secret information?"

"My family matters are of no concern to you." Precia said. "You should be more concerned about your own situation."

"If I got concerned about every little thing, I'd never be able to sleep at night." Clyde said. "I do admit to being curious, though. Since you clearly know that I'm not going to crack under interrogation, what's the point of bringing me here at all?"

"I'd like you to give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you right now." Precia said levelly.

"I'm guessing you won't take my good looks and charming personality for an answer?" Clyde said.

Precia raised one arm towards Clyde. Seething purple magic energy gathered in the palm of her hand, forming into a bullet-like sphere. This was an attack capable of piercing an Angel's Barrier; if it were to strike a human, it would undoubtably reduce him to ash.

"Okay, okay." Clyde said, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. "You want a better reason? How about this: I'm not a spy for SEELE."

Precia laughed in Clyde's face. It was a shocking display of emotion from a woman who perpetually concealed her true thoughts feelings by constantly maintaining a perfectly blank facial expression that betrayed nothing.

"I know you are not the saboteur who caused the blackout and hacked the MAGI, because I had security personnel watching you closely the entire time." Precia said. "But you are undoubtably a spy; and a terrible one, at that. I identified you the moment the old men sent you here."

"I'm a spy." Clyde admitted. "But I'm not spying _for_ SEELE; I'm spying _on_ SEELE."

Precia dismissed the energy she had gathered and lowered her hand.

"Explain." she ordered.

"I really work for the Japanese government." Clyde said. "A lot of the old guard politicians weren't too happy about our nation falling under UN control — especially once they realized that the UN were just pawns of SEELE. In a chess game, a lot of pawns get sacrificed, if you know what I mean. They decided that they wanted some info on their new dark masters' intentions."

"If that is indeed the case, what are you doing here at NERV?" Precia inquired.

"Well, I figured I wouldn't get to know anything by hanging around SEELE." Clyde said. "I mean, what was your reaction when you heard I was coming to NERV? To put me under constant surveillance and steer me away from any sensitive information. And the old men are even less forgiving than you — I hear the last spy they caught got mailed home in twenty-seven separate packages, with postage due. So when I infiltrated the organization, I decided to spend all my time far away from any offices where I might be caught snooping around filing cabinets, and instead be a field agent."

"That still doesn't explain how you obtained any information about SEELE for your employers." Precia said.

"I'm getting to that." Clyde said. "I pretended to be a double-agent for SEELE, when in fact I was a triple-agent for the government. By being damn good at it, I got promoted higher and higher in the SEELE hierarchy; and, in consequence, got assigned more and more important missions. You don't send your best field agent out chasing wild gooses. So, just by seeing the locations I was assigned to, I got a good idea of where the old men's top priorities lay. And now and then, I'd ask for a little clarification about my orders, saying I'd be able to do my job better if I knew a little more about what they were planning. Amazing the kind of things you can learn that way. So I'm not, as you put it, 'a terrible spy', but in point of fact a rather good spy, don't you think?"

"I see." Precia said. "Well then, Clyde, you may have a bargaining chip worth exchanging for your life after all. Tell me SEELE's plans regarding NERV, and I will let you leave this room alive."

"In the interest of honesty, let me tell you now that I didn't get as much dirt on SEELE's activities from this assignment as I normally do." Clyde said. "This assignment was different from the others. Since the old men knew you'd peg me as a spy right away, they only sent me in to serve as a distraction from their real agent — and to answer the obvious question, no, I don't know who it is. Since I was only intended to serve as a diversion this time, I didn't get told as much as I normally do — and it's hard to ask for information so I can better do my job when my job is just to act conspicuous."

"If you have nothing to offer but vague evasions, I will have to withdraw my generous offer." Precia said.

"Whoa, now." Clyde said. "I'm not completely in the dark; I was able to figure out a good deal on my own based on which things they conspicuously avoided talking about. Who was it who said, _A story is told as much by silence as by speech_?"

"Now you are just deliberately wasting my time." Precia said. "Since the old men's _actual_ spy is still on the loose in the base, I encourage you to be concise."

"The biggest, juiciest fact I dug up on SEELE for the government before being given this assignment was that SEELE has been hoarding Angel Cores." Clyde said. "They turned most of them into Intelligent Devices, for their own private army of Magical Girls and for the Arc-En-Ciel, but at least one Core has been allowed to awaken into an Angel, which they are currently keeping imprisoned. I also happen to know that, as of now, only two Angels remain sleeping beneath the New Dead Sea. Then, during my mission at NERV in particular, I learned that the old men had their other spy change the master override codes for the MAGI. Those are the facts; what follows are the conclusions I've drawn on my own. SEELE is keeping an Angel imprisoned because they want it to be the last Angel to attack NERV. And the reason they want that is because this Angel, designation Tabris, has a form vulnerable to the Arc-En-Ciel. There's no telling whether or not the two sleeping Angels are vulnerable to the Arc-En-Ciel, so they don't want to wipe you out before you've handled them. But once you do, they'll release their final angel. With the MAGI override codes, they can shut off your sensors so you don't detect the Angel until it penetrates your base. Likewise, they will know the instant the alarms go off, and at that time use the Arc-En-Ciel to blast the GeoFront from orbit. I think the weapon still needs a couple more test fires for them to calibrate it properly; but once the calibrations are complete, they'll be able to set the weapon's output to a level that will kill humans, Magical Girls, and Angels but not Progenitors. Incidentally, I do believe that they've written me off as acceptable collateral damage at this point in the plan, hence why I'm telling it to you in the hope that you'll interfere with it in some manner. Anyway, once NERV has been Arc-En-Ciel-ed, the old men will stroll into the smoking crater and take the Progenitors. It'll probably take a few years for the Progenitors to heal from the blast, but by that point SEELE won't have any enemies left. With no other Angels or Magical Girls left in the world, they will be able to initiate Third Impact at their leisure."

"Thank you, Clyde." Precia said. "You have indeed provided me with some very valuable information."

"And now you're trying to decide whether to kill me anyway." Clyde said calmly.

"It is a tempting prospect," Precia agreed, "made more so by your disrespectful attitude. However, it would be foolishly petty to kill you out of spite now that you have proven that you can indeed be a source of valuable information about my enemies. Consider yourself NERV's newest quadruple agent. You will of course remain under house arrest in your apartment for now; but if you can wheedle any further information out of your masters — either set of them — I might see fit to reward you with more leniency."

"Great." Clyde said. "Let's be good friends from now on, okay?"

* * *

"Major Lindy Harlaown." Precia said.

It wasn't a question, so Lindy said nothing in reponse.

"You have continued to pursue a romantic relationship with Clyde, even though I have made it quite clear that he is _persona non grata_ at NERV. Do you really think you can get away with defying me?"

"I'm fighting to save the world from the Angels, not for whatever grievances you have against SEELE." Lindy said. "I'll do my duty, but I'm not going to let your little tiff with the Council interfere with my love life — the details of which are frankly none of your business, _Commander_."

"Were you responsible for hacking the MAGI?" Precia said.

She spoke the question casually, almost lackadaisically, but her cold eyes carefully scrutinized Lindy's face for any hint of guilt.

"No." Lindy said. "How could I? I don't even know how to program the damn things."

"Perhaps your boyfriend gave you instructions." Precia suggested.

"Would you lay off Clyde already!" Lindy demanded. "My relationship with him is a personal one, nothing more. I'm seeing him because I love him, not because I'm taking orders from him."

"It seems you are sincere." Precia said. "You are not the spy."

"Yeah, tell me something I don't know." Lindy said.

She stood to leave.

"I did not dismiss you yet, Major." Precia said sharply.

Lindy sat back down.

"While I have your attention, there is another matter which I would like to discuss with you." Precia continued. "This business with Clyde shows that you are incapable of separating your personal life from your duty. You have demonstrated that your emotional attachments are impeding your ability to do your job. Therefore, effective immediately, Nanoha and Fate will be removed from your custody and given personal quarters in Central Dogma."

"You can't do that!" Lindy exclaimed.

"I am the Commander." Precia said icily. "I may do what I please."

"I mean... you shouldn't do that." Lindy said, struggling to control her emotions. "I want these girls to have some semblance of normalcy in their lives."

"Normalcy?" Precia scoffed. "They are not normal — they are Magical Girls, weapons in the war against the Angels. It is time for you to stop coddling them like children and start treating them like the military assets they are. Perhaps a little distance in your relationship with them will help you realize that. And if you have a problem with any of this, you should feel free to take up your gun a put a bullet through your skull at any time. Or, if you insist on continuing to subvert my will, a member of NERV security will be happy to do it for you. Good day to you, Major."

Lindy departed the room in silence.

* * *

"First Lieutenant Maya Ibuki." Precia said.

"Yes, Commander?" Maya said.

"I am given to understand that you are quite gifted at programming the MAGI." Precia said.

"Thank you, ma'am." Maya said.

"It was not a compliment, merely an observation." Precia said. "Please explain how you developed your programming skills."

"I... What's the best way to put it?" Maya seemed to be struggling to find the right words. "I guess it's because... I empathize with the MAGI. They aren't just computers; they're also living beings. I thought about how they must feel, as disembodied brains crammed into dark metal tanks with only the information we provide them as stimulation, and I came with a new approach to programming them — treating them not like mere computing devices, but as traumatized victims that need counseling. I show them care, comfort, kindness... and they respond to me in a way that could never be achieved by just feeding in a list of instructions."

"Such an interesting choice of words." Precia said. "It almost sounds as though you disapprove of the use of the MAGI."

"I do." Maya said firmly. "It's absolutely criminal to do to a human what has been done to the MAGI. And they _are_ human — their brain tissue may have been cloned and genetically modified, but they are human nevertheless."

"If you feel so strongly about it, why have you never raised the matter before?" Precia asked.

"Well... there isn't any alternative to the MAGI, is there?" Maya said. "We need their processing power the win the war. What's done is done; there's no way to give the MAGI normal lives now, and turning them off could result in many more innocent people being hurt by the Angels. The best thing I can do... the only thing I can do... is offer them what little comfort I can."

"Hm." Precia made a noncommital noise. "Tell me about your relationship with Dr. Akagi."

"That's personal." Maya said, blushing slightly.

"It is relevant to the investigation." Precia said.

"Alright." Maya said. "To tell the truth, I admired Dr. Akagi for a long time. I always thought of her as my _sempai_. However, I was afraid to speak to her about it because I was worried that she wouldn't like me. I was afraid that a mere assistant like myself wasn't worthy of the affection of a great scientist like Dr. Akagi. But when I finally did talk to her... it turned out she felt she wasn't worthy of me. She has such a low opinion of herself; she can't seem to see what a wonderful person she really is. But I can see. And I... love her."

"What if I told you that I was considering forbidding romantic relationships between NERV employees, to prevent the entanglement of personal and work matters?" Precia asked.

Maya cringed, but spoke firmly.

"I would accept your decision." Maya said. "I've waited this long to start dating Dr. Akagi; I can wait until after the end of the war."

"It is remarkable that someone so spineless could last at NERV so long." Precia said. "You have convinced me that, even if you did harbor traitorous ideals, you would lack the will to actually act on them. You may go."

"I'm not spineless." Maya said, a little upset. "I'm... moderate. Considerate of others. I mean, I do dislike conflict, but I can stand up for myself... when it's important."

"I said _you may go_, Lieutenant Ibuki." Precia said. "Unless you for some reason _wish_ to be found guilty of treason, please do not continue to test my patience."

"Yes, ma'am." Maya said.

The young lieutenant hurriedly stood up and exited the room.

* * *

"First Lieutenant Makoto Hyuga." Precia said. "Describe if you can the process that was used to hack the MAGI."

"Well, the first thing the saboteur did was shut down the power generators." Makoto said. "That shut down our consoles and preventing us from accessing the MAGI. But because the MAGI are such sensitive systems, their shells continued operating on an independent power supply. The saboteur must've used a maintenance hatch to access the MAGI directly using one of the terminals built in to their shells to change their programming. Of course, to change the master override code to something new, they must have had the old code, which no one but you is supposed to have... but SEELE could've provided them with the code. Even if you've changed the password since taking over NERV — which I assume you have, because you're not an idiot — SEELE originally built the MAGI, and they probably included a backdoor so they would always be able to get access."

"Interesting." Precia said. "You are quite knowledgeable about these things. So you admit you have the necessary technical knowledge to both sabotage the generators and reprogram the MAGI while the power was out?"

"No!" Makoto said. "I mean... I do have the necessary knowledge, yes, if you want to be technical about it, but I didn't sabotage them! I've just always had an academic interest in the MAGI, so I've studied their specs a lot. That's why I became a Bridge Bunny in the first place."

"_..._Bridge Bunny?" Precia asked, raising one eyebrow.

"MAGI computer technician, I mean!" Makoto hastily corrected. "It's why I became a MAGI computer technician in the first place."

"Bridge Bunny?" Precia repeated, the slightest hint of scorn in her frigid tone.

"That's, uh, kind of what our coworkers call us." Makoto said. "Well, to be honest, they called us that mostly behind our backs, at first. And then after a while they started calling us it to our faces. At some point we — _we_ being us three Bridge Bunnies, sorry, I mean us three MAGI computer technicians — started using the phrase ourselves. I can't remember when, exactly. But only informally, of course; we still use MAGI computer technician on all our reports and paperwork and stuff. Naturally."

"You are babbling." Precia said.

"Sorry." Makoto said. "I tend to talk too much when I get nervous. Not that I have anything to be nervous about. I mean, being interrogated by you is obviously something to be nervous about — you're the big boss lady, after all — but I shouldn't be nervous that I'm guilty. Because I'm not. Guilty, I mean."

"Yes, yes, you have convinced me that you are far too socially inept to be the saboteur." Precia said. "You may go."

* * *

"First Lieutenant Shigeru Aoba." Precia said.

"That's me, yeah." Shigeru said.

"What is your opinion on the conflict between NERV and SEELE?" Precia asked.

"I don't really feel strongly about it one way or another." Shigeru said. "No one's really even told me _why_ you and the old men are fighting, you know?"

"And you are not curious to find out?" Precia asked.

"Not particularly." Shigeru said. "I'm just a grunt, you know? My job is to follow orders. It doesn't really matter whose orders. You or SEELE; and the end of the day, I'm just doing a job, right?"

"Truly?" Precia asked. "The coming battle between NERV and SEELE will determine the entire future course of the human race, and you do not care enough about the outcome to invest yourself in one side or another?"

"Well, everyone always says that they're working for the future of humanity or something like that." Shigeru said. "Doesn't make it true. I mean, nobody's going to say, 'My so-called righteous crusade is really just a bunch of self-serving bullshit that will eventually peter out and be reduced to a footnote at the back of a boring history book which is only ever used as a doorstop, but would you mind dying for the cause anyway?' You say you're fighting a just battle to preserve humanity's future. If I asked SEELE, they'd probably tell me that they're doing the same thing. And there's no objective way to tell who is telling the truth, so why bother getting involved at all? Whoever wins, wins. And things do turn out poorly in the future, that'll be something to deal with then."

"If that is your attitude, why bother working for NERV at all?" Precia said.

"Well, the Angels destroyed half the world in Second Impact." Shigeru said. "That's kind of a bad precedent. So I think preventing Third Impact is probably a good thing. Plus, y'know, I need the money, and being a console jockey pays better than mopping the floors."

"Clearly there is no point in continuing this interrogation." Precia said. "The saboteur would not undertake the risk of spying for SEELE unless they had a strong philosophical conviction, and you clearly do not fit the bill. However, this meeting has not entirely been a waste of time. Now that you've been ruled out, the list of suspects with access to the MAGI and the knowledge necessary to reprogram them has been reduced to one. The mole is finally within my grasp."

"Great." Shigeru said. "Can I go now?"

"Yes, yes, by all means leave." Precia said. "I need to have a meeting with a traitor."

* * *

"So." Precia said. "You are the traitor who has chosen to sell out to the old men."

The traitor said nothing.

"You had the opportunity to carry out the sabotage, and the necessary knowledge." Precia said. "There is nothing mysterious about that. However, I fail to understand your motive."

The traitor remained defiantly silent.

"Of course, I knew about your past ties to SEELE." Precia said. "However, I thought I had provided you with sufficient incentive to serve only me. The sensible choice should have been obvious. Clearly I overestimated your intelligence."

The traitor did not rise to the goad.

"Explain yourself, Dr. Akagi!" Precia demanded.

Ritsuko Akagi seemed almost relaxed. If she was fearful of the harsh judgement Precia would certainly inflict upon her, she gave no outward sign of it. Instead, she gave the Commander a bitter smile.

"I doubt you could understand my reasons." Ritsuko said. "If you could, you would've known I was working against you a lot sooner."

"It was because of your mother, was it not?" Precia guessed. "Naoko Akagi was SEELE's top scientist, back before they got Jail Scaglietti working for them. She was quite enamored with the idea of Instrumentality, and did everything in her power to advance SEELE's schedule. And when she died before Instrumentality could be realized, you became devoted to bringing her dream to fruition..."

"Wrong." Ritsuko said flatly. "I did originally become a scientist for SEELE because I dreamed of bringing about Instrumentality; but that was the dream of a child, who still idolized her mother. I've since grown out of that dream. I don't even care whether or not SEELE succeeds with its plans Instrumentality any more, so long as your plans fail."

Precia was growing increasingly frustrated. She prided herself on her ability to read people's fears and desires, to know exactly which threats and bribes would best allow her to manipulate them. However, it was now clear that she had severely misjudged Dr. Akagi, and it was affecting her composure.

"Then why!" Precia demanded. "Why did you betray me!"

"Because you betrayed me." Ritsuko snapped back. "I first had doubts when you ordered me to perform the compatibility boost experiments with Baraqiel. That was inexcusable; it was _monstrous_. I should have refused to have anything to do with it. But I was in love with you, and thought that you were in love with me, so I ignored my better judgement. And what did you do then? You told me that you didn't love me, that you had never loved me, that you had only been using me. And I finally saw you as you truly are: an irredeemable monster. I knew then that I could never allow you to control the power of the Forbidden Union. I offered to become a spy for SEELE because they were the ones with the best chance of stopping you — and while I don't totally buy into their vision of the future anymore, I'm convinced that it's still a hell of a lot better than yours."

Precia was visibly struggling to regain control of her emotions. Her face slowly settled back down into its usual glacial mask.

"Your reasons are irrelevant." Precia said.

"Of course." Ritsuko said wryly. "Anything you don't understand must be irrelevant; that's the way it always is with you."

"What is important," Precia said, continuing as if Ritsuko hadn't spoken, "are the consequences. To start with, you will tell me how to change the master override codes."

"No." Ritsuko said simply.

"Oh, I did not expect you to tell me without some persuading." Precia said. "Fortunately, I am quite effective at persuasion. And in this case, I will not even have to do anything; you have already placed the noose around your own neck."

Ritsuko knew what was coming; had known it would come eventually ever since she first became a scientist for SEELE. And as much as she'd tried to prepare herself, the prospect of finally facing it still terrified her. She tried not to show her anxiety, but an involuntary tremor raced through her hand, and the Commander smiled at the sight.

"You will be imprisoned, without access to the blood of Lilith you have become so dependent upon." Precia said. "How long will you be able to endure the withdrawal symptoms? From what I have seen of other addicts, I doubt you will last so much as a week. I will soon have you begging me to permit you to assist me, in exchange for even a solitary drop of Lilith's blood."

"I'll never tell you." Ritsuko said. "I'd rather die than have you initiate the Forbidden Union and become Adonai! I'll kill myself before telling you!"

"You will not be given the opportunity." Precia said. "Security, you may take Dr. Akagi into custody now."

Ritsuko lunged forwards across Precia's desk in a desperate, futile attempt to seize the Commander's throat between her hands. Before she had covered even half the distance, two NERV security officers had seized her from behind and were dragging her backwards. One fired a taser against the small of her back, and Ritsuko collapsed in convulsions.

"Prepare a prison cell for her." Precia ordered the security officers. "Follow the standard containment procedure for captured enemy agents who know valuable information and are high suicide risks. Strip her naked and put her in a padded isolation room; minimum food and water. Have her monitored, and inform me when withdrawal symptoms begin to manifest."

The guards snapped to attention and then set about dragging Ritsuko's prone form from Precia's office. Ignoring them, Precia leaned back in her chair and steepled her fingers.

"Only three more Angels remain until the war between NERV and SEELE can begin in earnest; and now I have caught the Council's spy, and they have no way to insert another." Precia said. "Now my true work can begin. This is the beginning of the end for the old men."


	30. The Light Of God

**Chapter 30: The Light Of God**

A section of the New Dead Sea began to churn and froth as something rose up from beneath it. The Angel Arael had many sets of wings growing from its small central body, but it held them all stiffly, rigidly; it ascended like a hot air balloon, seemingly without the exertion of any effort. The Angel's flesh gave off a brilliant white radiance, making its form almost impossible to discern amidst the halo of light surrounding it. As the Angel rose into the air, its incredible luminescence lit up the surrounding sea as though a second sun had kindled within the heavens.

It was well known that Angels originated from the New Dead Sea, the dark depths of which their embryos had sunk into after their mother Adam's womb was torn apart in Second Impact. As such, numerous UN vessels constantly patrolled the surface of the sea, maintaining a vigilant watch for the emergence of any newly-awakened Angels. However, despite the Angel Arael's conspicuous ascent, no reports were sent of its appearance. Though the light cast by the Angel fell upon many ships in the surrounding area, none of their crews were in any condition to send a message to their superiors. On every ship bathed in the unearthly glow emanating from the Angel, the crew fell to the decks screaming and clawing at the heads, as though trying to physically rip out the utterly and intolerably alien thoughts that burrowed into their minds like vile worms.

The Angel showed no reaction to the violent frenzy it inspired in the humans touched by its light. It continued its slow, graceful movement, its path changing from a straight ascent to a gradual arc. The Angel began the journey that so many of its brethren had undertaken before it, towards Tokyo-3 and the Black Mother. But unlike its siblings, the ships that were intended to provide warning of its awakening had never had the chance to send a message to NERV. Arael advanced towards its destination unheralded, the people of Tokyo-3 unaware that the latest harbinger of their destruction was already on its way.

* * *

"This is horrible." Maya Ibuki said. "I still can't believe it's happening."

"Yeah." Makoto Hyuga said. "I never thought Dr. Akagi would turn out to be a traitor."

"It's scary to think about." Shigeru Aoba said. "I mean... she was our boss. We did everything she asked us to. Who knows how many times we me may have undermined NERV without even realizing it."

"How could we have known?" Makoto said. "She seemed so... normal."

"I should have known." Maya said. "I thought I had a connection with her."

"I mean, she was a bit cold, sure, but you'd expect a top scientist to be a bit detached and clinical." Makoto continued. "Though in retrospect, it wasn't any big secret that she really hated the Commander, what with the ugly breakup and all."

"Please." Shigeru said. "Asking who had reason to resent the Commander would only have narrowed to list of suspects down to, oh, I don't know, _everyone_. I mean, be honest for a moment: is there anybody here who actually _likes_ the lady?"

"Harsh." Makoto said. "What do you have against the Commander?"

"Where do I even start?" Shigeru said. "For one thing, she confiscated my guitar. Then she told me that each time she caught me playing air guitar when I should be typing, she'd mail me back a broken piece of it. The Commander may get results; but let's face it, she's kind of a bitch."

"What was Ritsuko thinking?" Maya said. "She had to know what the consequences of working for SEELE would be. What was important enough for her to risk it?"

"I doubt we'll ever know." Makoto said. "Grunts like us never get told anything."

"Ours is not to wonder why." Shigeru agreed. "Ours is but to do, and... well, you know the rest."

"There must be something we can do." Maya said. "Some way to find out."

"The Commander said she'd handle the matter of the traitor 'personally'." Makoto said. "That's pretty much the end of that."

"Yeah." Shigeru said. "Doc Akagi is the only person who ever stood up to the Commander — and look where that got her. I think it's best for the rest of us to keep our heads down and hope the Commander doesn't start questioning whether doc may have recruited accomplices."

"Do you think I'm spineless?" Maya asked.

"You're not spineless." Makoto assured her. "You're... uh... conflict-averse."

"Let's face it, we weren't hired for our bravery." Shigeru said. "We sit in the safety of Central Dogma while other people do the real fighting. There's a reason they call us the Bridge Bunnies."

"And there's nothing wrong with that." Makoto said. "Not everyone's cut out to be a hero."

"And that's okay with you?" Maya asked. "Being a bunny? Never taking risks, never questioning orders, and just hoping that everything turns out for the best?"

"It sucks." Shigeru said. "But the alternative would land us where Akagi is — probably having a conversation with Mr. Pliers and Mr. Blowtorch right about now."

"Don't even joke about that." Makoto said, shuddering.

"It isn't right." Maya mumbled. "Someone ought to stand up to the Commander."

"Yeah, sure." Shigeru said. "Any volunteers?"

There was a moment of silence.

"That's what I thought." Shigeru said.

* * *

The Angel Arael was serene, almost graceful in its movements. It glided through the air smoothly, without the slightest tilt or bob, as though untouched by the powerful antarctic winds. The Angel's flesh was perfectly rigid and absolutely unyielding; though it appeared to have bird-like feathered wings, the feathers never shook or ruffled, giving the being an eerie and unearthly air to it. The effect was amplified by the brilliant aura of light that radiated from wings, shining too brightly to be looked at directly with the naked eye. Arael was the first Angel to seem truly Angelic.

Contrasting the heavenly grace of the Angel was the bloody chaos that erupted in each seaborne vessel that passed beneath it. Wherever the Angel's light fell, people collapsed screaming to the decks of their ships, clawing at their skulls as through trying to physically rip out the hideous thoughts violating their minds. They scratched at their skin, beat their heads against metal bulkheads, driven to mindless self-flagellation by the unbearable intrusion into their thoughts. While the severity of the effects varied from person to person, there was no one who was immune; even those least effected by the Angel's aura were driven to curl into the fetal position in a corner with their hands clasped over their ears, muttering madly to themselves in an attempt to block the Angel's intrusion into their minds. There was no one with the fortitude to retain enough control to go to the radio and report what they saw.

And so, as the Angel passed over the ocean, one ship after another abruptly went out of contact. There were no warnings broadcast, no reports of the Angel's appearance or even desperate cries for help. Despite the catastrophic effects of its mere presence, the Angel's existence remained unknown as it floated ever closer towards its target.

* * *

"So... I guess this is where I'll be living now."

Nanoha and Fate looked at Nanoha's newly assigned sleeping quarters. She and Fate had previously been staying in Major Lindy Harlaown's apartment. It was an arrangement that quite suited Nanoha — she had come to view Lindy as something like a second mother to her, and of course she treasured all of her time spent with Fate. However, the order had abruptly come down from the Commander that their living arrangements were being changed, no explanation provided. Nanoha had asked Lindy to appeal the decision, but the Major had somewhat nervously told Nanoha that the Commander's mind was firmly made and that it would not be the best idea to argue with her over this. And so, Nanoha and Fate had come down to Central Dogma to move into their new rooms.

"Is yours nearby?" Nanoha asked.

"Down the hall." Fate told her.

Nanoha pushed open the door of the room, flipped on the lights, and looked around. She was faced with a square chamber of drab concrete, uniform in color and composition except for the occasional highlight of exposed metal pipework.

"Well, it's... bigger than Lindy's apartment." Nanoha said. "And I'm sure some decorations will liven the place right up."

"It looks like the room I lived in before moving in with you." Fate said.

"And it wasn't that bad, right?" Nanoha said. "I mean, you got along fine... right?"

"I didn't complain." Fate said. "But now... after living at Lindy's... I don't really want to go back."

"I wish we could stay at Lindy's, too." Nanoha sighed. "But I'm sure the Commander had a good reason for moving us. I mean... Lindy's apartment building was nice, but it was very exposed. Down here, we're much more protected from Angel attacks. That's probably why they had us move. We wouldn't want to get caught in a surprise attack, right?"

Fate walked slowly around the room, running her hands over the walls. The lack of windows was perfectly understandable, given the room's location deep underground, but nonetheless made the room feel more like a prison chamber than a living space.

"I used to live in a much nicer room." Fate said, lost in memory. "It was only after Father died that Mother took my things away and made me live in a room like this. She doesn't have a nice room anymore, either; she sleeps in her office, now. I think she must still hurt very bad from losing him. She probably can't bear to be around anything that reminds her of him. That's why she got rid of everything... because places that are cold and empty won't remind her of our old family home..."

Nanoha kept silent, not wishing to upset Fate, but she privately doubted the accuracy of Fate's assessment. Nobody at NERV seemed to know for sure who Fate's father was; according to everyone she asked, Precia's husband Gendo Rokubungi had died in Second Impact, and she had never remarried. Nanoha suspected that Fate's memories of a happy family life were rose-tinted, considering Precia apparently hadn't cared enough about Fate's father to actually marry him. And Precia's next relationship, with Dr. Akagi, was not in the least about love, but rather a cold-hearted strategy for manipulating the doctor. Fate was trying to rationalize her mother's negligent treatment of her living conditions, just like she had rationalized Precia's whippings as just punishment for her own failings. It saddened Nanoha, to see Fate so devoted to a person who Nanoha was convinced was entirely undeserving of her affection. As far as she could see, Precia was and had always been a terrible mother; and yet Fate seemed to idolize her regardless.

"C'mon." Nanoha finally said. "Let's get the boxes; our stuff isn't going to move itself in."

* * *

After traveling across the ocean, Arael finally arrived at the Japanese mainland. It continued its slow, steady, unrelenting flight towards Tokyo-3. Of course, there were no longer any inhabited cities in its path; once it had become clear that all Angels traveled in a straight line from the New Dead Sea to Tokyo-3, everyone who happened to be in the way had moved somewhere else as fast as they could. As the Angel proceeded along its course, the edges of its ravaging aura just brushed the outskirts of the nearest populated cities.

Madness and violence broke out like a plague wherever the Angel touched human minds, but the effects of its aura were reduced with distance. While some people in the neighboring cities were affected, there were many more who were able to retain their sanity. And at last alarming reports of the insanity caused by the Angel's influence poured in to the authorities. The MAGI, which regularly monitored all interceptable communications in order to identify newly appeared Angels as quickly as possible, quickly determined that the outbreaks of chaos were due to Angelic influence. At that point, it was merely a matter of re-targeting a spy satellite to observe the Angel's probable location, and the first images of the Angel Arael were transmitted to NERV.

With the presence of the enemy confirmed, the Angel attack sirens began sounding all throughout Tokyo-3 and the GeoFront below. With the enemy already nearly upon them, there was no time to lose; it was time to deploy the Magical Girls.

* * *

Normally, the Magical Girls received their mission briefings from Lindy in the briefing room. This time, however, they were summoned to the Command Center.

"We do we know about the Angel?" Precia asked.

"Next to nothing, Commander." Fuyutsuki. "Anyone who gets close enough to see it is left in no condition to give us a report."

"And the MAGI?" Precia asked.

"Are unable to analyze the target, they say." Makoto said. "Insufficient data, apparently."

"Well, what's the plan?" Nanoha asked.

"Because of the catastrophic effect the Angel has on anyone in its proximity, it is imperative that we stop it before it gets any closer to Tokyo-3." Lindy said. "We've already sounded the evacuation siren and lowered the buildings down into the GeoFront, but the MAGI cannot determine whether that will offer any additional protection against the Angel's effect. Our best bet would seem to be a long-range attack against the Angel's Core."

A holographic image of the Angel appeared in the command center. It was hazy, indistinct; it had been constructed based on many extreme distance photographs of the Angel because no one could get in any closer to get a higher quality photo. As vague as the image was, it did appear to show Arael's Core, hanging unprotected in the open beneath the small body that anchored the Angel's massive wings.

"If one of you girls pours all your power into a single long-range attack, you should be able to penetrate the Angel's Barrier and destroy its Core from outside the radius of its harmful mental effects." Lindy concluded.

"I can do it, Major." Nanoha said. "I took down Ramiel from a distance using Divine Buster Extension; I'll handle Arael the same way."

"Send Fate out first." Precia ordered. "To determine the Angel's offensive capabilities."

"What?" Nanoha said in surprise.

"Commander?" Lindy asked.

"Must I always explain myself to you before you will follow my orders?" Precia asked. "An Angel will always perceive a Magical Girl as a threat and attack her first. Because we have no data on Arael, we have no idea what type of attack it might employ against the Magical Girl we send out. It could have a beam weapon comparable in power to Ramiel's, and we would not know until we sent a girl out and it fired upon her. The Takimachi girl is our only long-range specialist; if we send her out first and she is killed by an unpredicted attack, we will have lost our best hope of defeating the Angel. Better to send Fate aboveground first and see if her presence provokes an attack from the Angel. If the Angel does not react, we will send Nanoha up and proceed with your long-range attack plan, Major; if it does, we will be forced to come up with a new approach."

"Why Fate?" Lindy asked.

"She has the weakest bond with her Device, and is therefore the most expendable." Precia said coldly.

"What!" Lindy said in outrage. "That's not how we decide who to assign to missions! Hell, if we're going by who's most expendable, we should send a janitor out to poke it with his mop!"

"I should go!" Nanoha insisted. "My magic is best suited for the job!"

"It's fine." Fate said. "I'll go."

"Fate..." Nanoha said.

"This is my duty." Fate said. "And... it's what Mother wants from me. I can't let her down. I have to show her that she can count on me... no matter what. Open me a portal, Shamal."

Shamal hesitated at being put on the spot. She glanced back and forth, taking in the various expressions worn by the people around her. Nanoha and Lindy both looked concerned about Fate's safety. Even Fuyutsuki seemed a bit uneasy; though he stood at attention, his eyes kept drifting to look at Precia. Precia wore her usual mask of cold indifference; Shamal could not recall ever having seen the Commander with a different expression. But what finally convinced her was the look on Fate's face. She could see at a glance that the younger girl's mind was set; she was absolutely determined to live up to her mother's expectations.

"Alright." Shamal said. "Be careful, okay?"

Shamal ran a finger over her ring, and Klarer Wind's magic created a glittering green-rimmed portal in the air of the Command Center. Fate paused for a moment as Bardiche's yellow energy flowed over her, clothing her in her Barrier Jacket, and then stepped through the portal into the sky over Tokyo-3. A flight spell immediately kicked in and lifted her higher, above the tops of the skyscrapers, so that she would have a clear line of sight towards the incoming Angel.

"The Angel should be at extreme visual range." Lindy said over Fate's earpiece.

The Angel shone so brightly that it was easy to make out, even in the daylight. It was visible as a burning pinpoint of white light, rising over the horizon and gradually coming closer.

"I see it." Fate said.

And Arael saw Fate as well. Though the Angel did not possess sight in the human sense, it could detect the magic energy given off by Bardiche and recognize it as a human perversion of the power of its sibling Baraqiel. The Angel's crystalline Core pulsated with alien energies, then flared brilliantly and fired a focused beam of energy at Fate's position.

"Fate!" Lindy shouted. "Incoming!"

"Defenser!" Fate said.

She created a yellow magic circle in front of her and braced herself for the shock of impact. However, the impact never came; the energy being fired at her by the Angel washed over and enveloped her like she was caught in the beam of a searchlight. Fate felt a strange tingling sensation all throughout her body, as though each individual nerve ending in her skin was being pricked with a microscopic needle. Strange and impossible colors filled her vision. Lindy was trying to say something, but Fate couldn't hear the Major over the loud, orchestral music which seemed to be emanating from within her own skull. Fate figured that Lindy was probably calling for her to retreat, but the assault on her senses had caused her to lose any sense of her own position or motion. She wasn't sure which way was up or down; she couldn't even tell if she was careening blindly through the air or still frozen where the beam had hit her.

And then the Angel began to violate her mind. Fate could feel cold, caustic tentacles of alien thought sinking into her brain. Unable to bear the sensation, Fate blacked out.

* * *

"Fate!" Lindy yelled. "Fate!"

Fate hung limply in the center of the Angel's beam. Though Lindy shouted her name again and again, Fate didn't so much as twitch in response. The defensive barrier she had raised dissolved into disconnected sparks and vanished. Being unconscious should have caused her flight spell to shut down as well, but she remained suspended in the air, as though caught in the grasp of some mysterious force.

"I'm getting her out of there!" Shamal said. "I'll open a portal—"

"No!" Precia said, so sharply that Shamal flinched. "The energy being emitted by the Angel could bleed through an open portal. Opening one into the Command Center could expose us all to the effect."

"Then I'll open one to catch the beam — redirect it out into space —" Shamal said.

The large holographic screens in the Command Center showed a portal begin to open in the beam between the Angel and Fate. After a few seconds, however, it collapsed back down to a point and disappeared. At the same time, Shamal cried out in pain and fell to her knees. The ring on her finger shattered into sparks of green magic, the Device's form disrupted by the energy that had trickled back to it from the forming portal. Even an Angelic being such as Mbriel could not help but recoil from the vile, toxic psychic energy being output by Arael.

"Shamal!" Vita said, rushing to her friend's side. "Are you okay?"

"Horrible..." Shamal muttered. "It's horrible..."

"What is the MAGI's analysis?" Precia asked.

"Um... best guess is that it's a directed attack against Fate's psyche." Makoto said.

"If these readings are correct, she's in direct contact with the Angel's mind right now." Maya said.

"God, can you imagine?" Shigeru said. "To touch minds with something that utterly alien? Shamal was only in contact with it for a moment, and look what it's done to her. What must Fate be experiencing?"

* * *

Fate awoke to find herself amidst a sea of blood. It stretched out beneath her in every direction, waves rising and falling beneath the bottoms of her feet. She was tied by her wrists to a giant iron cross that rose from the endless ocean of blood below. A crown of thorns rested upon her head, the spikes pressing against her skin without breaking it. Fate knew this surreal scene couldn't be real, but it felt real. She could smell the sickening scent of the blood below, feel the cold metal pole pressing against her back and the ties biting into her wrists.

Fate looked up to the sky and was immediately frozen with fear. The entire sky was dominated by a single, massive, inhuman eye that stretched from horizon to horizon. The pupil was fixed directly on her, and Fate felt as though it was staring into her very soul. She immediately lowered her head, unable to bear that terrifying sight any longer. It was then that she discovered that she was not alone in this hellish landscape. There was a figure before her, standing on the sea of blood as though it was a solid surface. The thing looked almost like a copy of her, but it was radiating a golden light. A large pair of angelic wings extended from its back; the tips of the golden feathers slowly dripped droplets of blood down into the sea. It looked up at Fate on her cross, and Fate saw that it had no eyes, only empty sockets from which twin rivers of blood flowed down its face. And it was smiling.

"Who are you?" Fate asked.

"Who are you?" the mockery echoed.

"Are you the Angel?" Fate asked.

The golden thing smiled even wider and ruffled its wings, showering a fine mist of blood drops onto the surface of the rippling ocean below.

"I am Arael, a child of Adam." It said in a sing-song voice. "Who are you?"

"I am Alicia Testarossa." Fate said.

"Liar." Arael said, still speaking in the same cheerful tone.

The thorns on the crown encircling Fate's head suddenly lengthened. She flinched in pain as they penetrated her skin, dozens of pinpricks of pain shooting around her head.

"I'm not lying! I'm Alicia, Precia Testarossa's daughter!" Fate protested.

"Poor thing, who does not even know herself." Arael said. "How old are you, daughter of Precia?"

"I'm ten. Ten years old." Fate said.

"Liar!" Arael shouted gleefully.

The thorns lengthened again, punching further into Fate's head. She felt an unbearable pressure, like her head was being squeezed in a vice; she thought she could feel the tips pressing against her skull.

"When were you born, daughter of Precia?" Arael asked.

"1990." Fate gasped, fighting the pain.

"And what is the current year, daughter of Precia?" Arael asked.

"2015." Fate managed to say.

"How old are you, daughter of Precia?" Arael asked.

"Ten." Fate repeated.

"Liar! Liar! Liar!" Arael chanted ecstatically. "Know yourself for what you truly are, wretched thing: pitiful doll of a mad woman playing mother, discarded toy of one with the hubris to usurp the power of God."

"I'm not—" Fate began, only to break off screaming.

The thorns sprouted further, penetrating her skull and growing directly into her brain. They penetrated her thoughts and memories, digging deep into her mind. Fate screamed at the violation of her soul, but could not hear herself; the only sound in her ears was Arael's laughter.

And then Fate was suddenly elsewhere. She stood on a grassy hill on a warm summer day, feeling the breeze ruffle her hair. A short distance away, a happy family was enjoying a picnic. Fate was startled to recognize the family as her own. Precia wore an easy, relaxed smile, and there was a bright cheer in her eyes that Fate had not seen for years. Sitting next to her was Fate's father, Gendo Rokubungi, and the sight of him sent deep pangs of loss through Fate's heart. And between them... sat herself. Her younger self, from the time before Second Impact when everyone had still called her Alicia. Recognition finally dawned on Fate — this was her memory of a picnic she'd had with her parents when she was eight years old. It was one of Fate's most cherished memories. Things had been so happy in those days, when her father had been alive and her mother lived outside of NERV...

"A pleasant dream." Arael said. "But that is all it is: a dream, dreamed by a madwoman and planted in your empty mind."

The Angel stood next to Fate, leering at her with its empty, bleeding eyesockets.

"No." Fate said. "This is real. This really happened. Dad took a photograph of us..."

Below, Gendo balanced a camera on top of the picnic basket and fiddled with its timer function. Precia and Alicia both lay down on the grass, facing the camera with large smiles on their faces; after a moment, Gendo ran over to join them. His glasses were knocked slightly askew in the rush to get into position, and he didn't have time to fix them before the camera clicked. Fate remembered it well; Gendo had been quite particular about his glasses, and so this was the only picture she had of him in which they were uneven.

"Perhaps it is something that really happened; but it is something that happened to another girl, not to you." Arael said. "Alicia Testarossa is dead. Do you remember dying, puppet? Remember the death of the girl you were made to replace?"

The scene abruptly changed. This time, Fate recognized the time and place of the memory immediately. Everyone who had lived through the Second Impact remembered exactly where they'd been when it had happened.

On that day, Precia had come home early from work. That in itself was quite a rare event; Precia was always very devoted to her work, and had been particularly busy since being appointed to SEELE's Human Instrumentality Project. Fate couldn't even pronounce the Project's name, let alone understand what it was about, but her mother had told her that it was extremely important and had spent more and more time working on it. So it was extremely surprising when Precia had come home in the middle of the day and told Fate that they were going to go on a special trip. While they had gone on family outings before, Precia had always planned such events well in advance. What's more, it was very unusual for them to go on such a trip without Gendo. However, on this occasion, Precia said that he wouldn't be coming.

Precia had driven to a place that looked like a military bunker. There was a surprising amount of activity; it seemed like lots of important people in fancy suits were gathering at the base and being led underground by the staff. Precia had told Fate that they needed to separate for a bit here; she needed to join this group, while Fate was instructed to join another queue, which seemed to be composed of the spouses and children of the VIPs.

Fate was a verily dutiful girl, so of course she had obeyed her mother's instructions... at first. However, once separated from her mother, she'd started to get a bad feeling about all the unfamiliar men trying to escort her into the grimy, poorly-lit depths of the bunker. Her mother had always been very strict about warning her to stay away from strangers; wouldn't that apply to her current circumstances? Precia had never just handed Fate over to unknown people like this, and separation anxiety gave rise to fear that clawed at her heart.

Finally, Fate could take no more. She waited until the military escorts were distracted with other people and slipped away from the group. She quickly retraced their path from memory; a task made much easier by the fact that the group had been moving steadily downwards, so she had only to see which path led back upwards to know the correct way to go. Fate was worried about being caught — as bad as being with the group was, surely things would be much worse for her if she was found wandering around on her own — but there didn't seem to be any guards around. In fact, the upper levels seemed eerily deserted, as though everyone had been eager to get downstairs with the group.

Soon enough, Fate had made her way back outside. The bunker which had once bustled with activity now seemed deserted. There was no one left outside, and no one remained to man the gates or patrol the grounds.

Fate tried to recall where she had last seen Precia standing in line and headed in that direction, calling out for her mother. However, something seemed to drown out her voice; a rumbling noise so deep that she could feel it in her bones. Turning to face south, Fate saw what looked like the early light of dawn creeping over the horizon. But that was impossible: the sun rose in the east, and in any case it was already midday so the sun should be right above her... So what was this brilliant white light, growing larger and brighter by the moment? Fate could do nothing but stare rapturously at the spreading brilliance. She could see compression rings spreading out in the air around it; and the ground was being torn apart in what she could only describe as a land tsunami, as though the world was a rug that someone had hung up to flap in the breeze...

Then the shockwave from Second Impact hit, and Fate was blown off her feet and into a world of darkness.

Abruptly, the younger Fate was lying in a bed in her old room in Central Dogma. It was decorated with what possessions Precia had managed to salvage from their old home; this was before she had taken them away. Precia herself leaned over Fate's bed, wearing a concerned expression. Her face had not yet settled into the permanent mask-like expression of neutrality she wore these days, though her eyes were already cold and hard and devoid of their previous light.

"Alicia, honey?" Precia said gently. "Do you remember me?"

"Mother?" young Fate mumbled.

"That's right." Precia said. "There was an awful accident, and you've been... asleep for a while, but now you've come back to me and everything is going to be okay."

The memory froze at this point, as though time had been stopped. Fate knew the following events all too well in any case. Despite what her mother had said, everything hadn't been okay. Not only was her father dead, but Precia had changed: she had grown crueler than Fate could ever have thought possible. She snapped at Fate over every tiny mistake, and sometimes even when Fate honestly didn't think she'd made a mistake at all. She'd demanded that Fate stop using the name "Alicia", and had begun calling her by her current name instead. She'd taken away all of Fate's old possessions, leaving her to live in a cold, cheerless room. And then had come the bonding with the Intelligent Device Bardiche, which she now knew to be the Angel Baraqiel, and her subsequent training as a Magical Girl...

"There is a discontinuity in your memory here." Arael said. "Fifteen missing years."

"Mother explained it to me." Fate said. "I was seriously injured in the Second Impact. I spent a long time unconscious, in a coma."

"Liar." Arael said. "You claim to be ten years old before a fifteen-year coma, and ten years old after? You are lying — lying to yourself. You refuse to admit the truth to yourself, to acknowledge that you are not what you wish to believe yourself to be."

"I don't understand." Fate said.

"It is time you remembered your birth." Arael said. "The memory has been buried by others, but it still exists within you; and I command you — recall it. Recall what you truly are, doll: a mere marionette of the flesh, shaped to take the place of the one whose life was lost."

Their surroundings changed once more. Fate was now immersed in liquid. She floated buoyantly in it, as if it was salt water, but she had no difficulty breathing. Looking around herself, she realized that she was suspended in an enormous tank. And floating all around here were identical copies of herself. Dozens of perfect replicas surrounding her, naked and unmoving. They looked almost like mass-produced dolls, dumped haphazardly into a display case.

One of the walls of the tank was glass. Looking through it, Fate could see two people looking back at her: Precia and Dr. Akagi. Precia's seemed to be looking about in a systematic manner, examining each floating body in turn with a penetrating glare as though scrutinizing it for the tiniest flaw or defect.

"For God's sake, Commander." Dr. Akagi said. "They're _clones_. They're all identical. You don't have to inspect every single one."

Though her voice was muffled by the glass and distorted by the liquid, there was no mistaking the fact that it was full of bitterness. If this surreal scene was indeed taking place when Arael claimed, then the acrimonious breakup of their romantic relationship was still quite recent.

"That one." Precia finally said.

"Beginning decanting procedure." Dr. Akagi said.

Machinery descended from the ceiling of the tank and grasped one of the limp bodies, lifting it up towards a slide that would carry it out to the room where Precia and Dr. Akagi waited. Fate was unavoidably reminded of the carnival game where the player used a joystick to control a mechanical claw and tried to pick up a prize.

"It's ready." Dr. Akagi said. "You really think this is going to go better than the last dozen times?"

"I have further refined the memory implant based on the last failure." Precia said. "I will recreate Alicia eventually, whether it takes a hundred tries or a thousand. It was a mistake, thinking she would be reborn perfectly the first time. I will advance slowly but steadily, one step at a time, each new Fate slightly better than the last. And, eventually, Alicia will return to me."

"You're going to call this one _Fate_ too, huh?" Dr. Akagi asked.

"Let us be realistic; it will most likely be another failure." Precia said. "I will not give the precious name Alicia to a mere doll; I will reserve it for the time when my daughter is truly reborn. And there is no point in thinking up a new and unique name for something that will shortly be discarded; the way things are progressing so far, we would run out of names before the project's completion. Let her be just another Fate."

"Your call." Dr. Akagi said.

The scene changed. The body withdrawn from the tank had been moved to Fate's room, dressed in her clothes, and placed in her bed.

"I'm implanting the memories now." Dr. Akagi said.

Dr. Akagi raised a syringe filled with dark liquid. It contained the Blood of Lilith — a medium for encoding information. Drawn directly from Lilith's veins, it contained fragments of the vast memory of the Black Progenitor. The MAGI system could filter and concentrate the information contained in the blood, assembling the dissociated fragments into complete and easily understood ideas and concepts that could be of use by NERV's scientists. And they could also imprint the blood with new information — for instance, the life of one Alicia Testarossa, reassembled based on the memories of her mother...

The Fate in the bed sighed softly as Dr. Akagi injected her with the contents of the syringe, and her eyes fluttered rapidly beneath their lids as though she were deep in REM sleep. Then, she slowly woke up, looking on Precia with an expression of confusion.

"Alicia, honey?" Precia said gently. "Do you remember me?"

"Mother?" young Fate mumbled.

"That's right." Precia said. "There was an awful accident, and you've been... asleep for a while, but now you've come back to me and everything is going to be okay."

Fate remembered. Her awakening — and the last time that her mother had called her by her real name.

"Not _your_ real name; hers." Arael said.

The scenery around them dissolved, and Fate was once more crucified above the sea of blood, with the massive eye staring down at her from above and the hideous Angel floating before her with a mocking smile on its mutilated face.

"So now you know." Arael said. "Know that everything you ever believed about your past was a lie. Know that your mother never loved you, never saw you as anything more than a meat puppet wearing the face of her true daughter. Poor Lilim, forced to bear the curse self-knowledge. Your kind are all so fragile; your minds break like glass under even the lightest touch. Truly it is a blessing that you and all your ilk will soon be expunged from the surface of this world, and the White Mother will bless it with the Angelic life it was always meant to bear."

Hanging on her cross, there was nothing Fate could say. She could only close her eyes and wait for death.

* * *

"We can't just let her die!" Lindy said.

"There is nothing we can do, Major." Precia said. "We have no way of retrieving Fate, and no way of striking against this Angel without exposing another Magical Girl to its influence."

"I'll go." Nanoha said. "Shamal can portal me somewhere behind the Angel. Maybe it can't fire this beam in more than one direction at a time. I might be able to hit it while it's focused on Fate... or at least get it to release Fate to attack me."

"The risk involved in such a plan is significant." Precia said. "The Angel's aura is known to be capable affect many people at the same time; it is possible that this beam weapon can likewise be employed against multiple targets."

"I'm willing to take the risk." Nanoha said. "For Fate's sake."

"It is not your decision to make." Precia said. "It is up to your superior officers to decide how, and indeed whether, you are to be deployed."

"Well, I'm about ready to approve it, if we can't think of something better soon." Lindy said. "We can't just leave Fate out there to die. It isn't right."

"That's odd." Maya said. "The MAGI are picking up some pretty strange readings."

"From Fate?" Nanoha asked fearfully.

"No, from the Angel itself." Maya said. "Or rather from the air around the Angel. They're detecting a rapid increase in ionization of the surrounding particles..."

"Adjust the display, give us a visual on it." Fuyutsuki ordered.

"As you wish, boss-man." Makoto said, typing on his control panel. "No human can get anywhere near the Angel, but we've got video feed from unmanned aerial surveillance drones coming in now. It looks like..."

The display on the Command Center's holographic screens changed, from showing Fate's limp form caught in a ray of light to the Angel emitting the ray.

"...a rainbow?" Makoto finished.

A circular rainbow spread through the air above Arael, as though to grace the Angel with a halo. But it wasn't the only one, as more and more rainbows rapidly appeared in expanding concentric circles. The rainbow above Arael now appeared less like a halo, and more like the bulls-eye of a highly colorful target.

"MAGI say that probable cause of this phenomenon is activation of SEELE's Arc-En-Ciel weapon." Shigeru said. "In which case, in the next few seconds we should expect to see... _holymothergod-!_"

A brilliant bolt of magical energy lanced down from the sky. It broke through Arael's Barrier like it was nothing, drove into the Angel's back, burst out through its stomach, and pierced the Core grasped in the Angel's arms as it continued on to the ground. A second sun blossomed where the beam struck ground, an unbearably bright white light expanding from the point of impact to devour everything in sight. The display screens then dissolved into static, as the drone providing the image was consumed by the blast.

"Hang on." Maya said. "Switching to remote observer."

The static resolved itself into a new image, apparently from a ground-based camera at a much greater range from the epicenter of the explosion. The people in Central Dogma watched mutely as a flower of white fire blossomed in the distance. The Angel's body didn't even have time to melt away before it was enveloped in a pillar of fire rising from the ground. The superheated air from the blast expanded as it rose, gradually taking on a familiar mushroom shape. Several seconds later, the shockwave finally hit, and a tsunami-like cloud of dust roiling out from the explosion obscured the camera's view.

"Interesting." Precia finally said. "So this is the full power of the Arc-En-Ciel. Something that our plans will need to take into account."

"Shamal!" Lindy said. "Get Fate! Take her straight to the infirmary!"

* * *

The people of NERV were not the only ones watching the fiery cataclysm with interest. Lorenz Keel, Chairman of SEELE, sat behind his desk in his office deep within _Der Riese_. Holographic projectors within the room generated images of black monoliths that stood in for the other six members of the Council.

"I am pleased to announce that the Arc-En-Ciel's performance has lived up to our expectations." Keel said. "Everything is proceeding in accordance with our plan."

"Soon we will have everything we desire." SEELE 05 said.

"Only one Angel remains slumbering beneath the New Dead Sea." SEELE 04 said. "Now that all its myriad siblings have perished, it will finally be forced to awaken."

"One final Angel for our enemies at NERV to destroy." SEELE 02 said. "They will savor the victory, if they are wise, for it will be their last."

"They do not know of the Angel already within our grasp — the _true_ final Angel will be _our_ Angel, our most exquisite Tabris." SEELE 07. "And with the MAGI override codes given to us by the darling doctor acting as our lady Judas, we can shut down NERV's ability to detect Angels. They won't even be aware Tabris is attacking until it breaks into Central Dogma."

"Of course, an Angel so close to penetrating Terminal Dogma will leave us with only one option: to immediately call down the wrathful lightning of the Arc-En-Ciel, annihilating Tabris and NERV in a single decisive strike." SEELE 03 said.

"And now that we have gathered enough firing data to perform the necessary calibrations on the weapon, we can fire the Arc-En-Ciel at a power level that will destroy NERV utterly while leaving the Progenitors alive." SEELE 06 said. "We'll have our cake, and eat it too."

"Indeed, there is nothing that can stop us now." Keel said. "We will carry out the Forbidden Union and combine Adam and Lilith into a single perfect being, Adonai. And from Her, we will take our communion. We will eat of her flesh, and we will drink of her blood, and we will gain life everlasting."

* * *

Fate hesitated in front of the door to Precia's office. She'd been cleared and released from the infirmary with surprising quickness: for all the terrible mental anguish the Angel had inflicted on her, it hadn't done a bit of physical harm. The biggest concern had been that Arael might have awakened her Device, as Iruel had awakened Reinforce into Bardiel. However, the doctor who examined her said that Arael couldn't have done so from a distance; it would have needed to make actual, physical contact with her, to replace the excised parts of Baraqiel's Core with pieces of itself. Fate had thought that the doctor had an unseemly quality of smugness about him as he explained this; she suspected that being chosen to replace Dr. Akagi as chief scientist had given him an overly inflated opinion of himself.

Fate raised her hand to knock on the door, then thought better of it. To knock would be the same as asking Precia's permission to enter; it would be a submissive gesture, acknowledging her authority. Fate was here to be aggressive, to be assertive, to demand answers. She lowered her hand, took a deep breath to steady herself, then pushed open the door and marched into the room like she owned it.

"Fate." Precia said coldly. "Have you no manners? Knock before you enter."

"Sorry, Mother." Fate said automatically, before she could stop herself.

"Well?" Precia demanded. "Did you come here for a reason?"

"I... need to know." Fate said. "When I was in contact with the Angel, it showed me terrible things. Are all my memories fake? Am I not really Alicia? Am I not really... real?"

Precia's cold eyes narrowed at the question. She seemed to consider her answer for several moments. Then, finally, she spoke.

"Yes." she said. "You are not my daughter Alicia. You are just a thing I created that looks like her."

"Then... then... did you ever really love me?" Fate asked.

"Love you!" Precia asked.

The normal placid expression that Precia wore shattered as naked hatred and disgust forced themselves onto her features.

"I do not love you — have never loved you!" Precia yelled.

She stood up from her desk as she shouted, causing Fate to flinch backwards and press her back against the wall of Precia's office.

"I love Alicia, and you are not Alicia." Precia continued, venom dripping from her voice.

She advanced mercilessly on Fate, her face twisted into a snarl of hatred, and Fate fell down onto her butt. She quickly wrapped her arms around her legs, pulled them tight to her chest, and lowered her head, as though her mother's wrath might be weathered like a storm.

"Alicia was a much, much better daughter than you." Precia said. "Her smile was a lot gentler than yours. And her laughter was a lot sweeter than yours. She didn't cry, or complain, or disobey me. And whenever she ate ice cream, there would always be a spot left on her chin when she was done, and she would smile when I used a napkin to wipe it off. That never happens anymore. It's _your_ fault, Fate. Why couldn't you be someone I could love? Why couldn't you be _her_?"

"Mother, I'm me." Fate pleaded. "I'm the same me I've always been. I can't be anyone else!"

"You're nothing." Precia said. "No matter how carefully I refine the memories before implanting them into a clone, you always turn out different. You are not Alicia, can never hope to be Alicia; you are nothing but a fake, a fraud, a... _grotesque mockery_ of who Alicia truly was."

Precia crouched down so she could look Fate in the eyes.

"I hate you more than you can possibly imagine." Precia hissed. "You, and the several dozen other clones who came before you. Do you want to know what happened to them? I used them in the bonding experiments with Baraqiel. I enjoyed seeing those sick, pathetic mockeries of my true daughter die horribly of rejection reactions. Have you ever seen a rejection reaction, Fate? Oh, it was beautiful to watch. The magic would rip them apart from the inside out, blow them to piece, reduce those sick, pathetic mockeries to nothing but steaming piles of entrails. And you should have suffered the same fate! But then Dr. Akagi's compatibility boost serum actually worked on you. Not well enough for you to become a halfway _decent_ Magical Girl like Takamachi, but enough for you to survive. And so I've had to keep pretending that you're my daughter, not some horrible, pathetic thing wearing Alicia's face. But I don't need you any more! Once I've completed the Forbidden Union, I'll be able to truly resurrect Alicia. You are unwanted and unneeded! You should just disappear from my sight! Disappear!"

Pinpoints of white light kindled in Precia's eyes, and purple energy crackled in her hand. Precia's magic coalesced into a whip of purple lightning. She lashed out with it, striking Fate across the shoulders. Fate fell to her knees as Precia rained blow after vicious blow on her.

"I wish you had died!" Precia screamed. "You should have died! Just die already! Die! Die! Die! Die!"

Precia's exclamations blended together into an inarticulate scream of rage. It was only when she ran out of breath that she regained the slightest semblance of composure. Fate lay at her feet, curled into a fetal position, bleeding from numerous lacerations across her back. Precia looked down on her erstwhile daughter, a look of absolute revulsion on her face. Then, after a moment of contemplation, she spit on Fate's trembling form. Finally, she used her feet to literally kick Fate out of her office, treating the girl like filth that she would not deign to touch with her hands.

"Never show your face before me again." Precia said.

She slammed the door to her office shut, with finality.


	31. Sempai

**Chapter 31: Sempai**

Dr. Ritsuko Akagi's prison was a small concrete cell. It was unfurnished, save for the small cot on which she sometimes slept. Ritsuko was not sleeping now, however; she had not been able to sleep for some time. Years of usage of the blood of Lilith to enhance her mind and accelerate her thoughts were now taking their toll on her. Her brain had become dependent on the substance for normal operation. Now, without it, trying to follow even the simplest train of thought felt like wading through hip-deep mud. She could feel her mind imploding; brilliant ideas that fluttered at the edge of her comprehension crumbling to ash each time she tried to grasp them. Even ideas that she'd had in the past began slipping away from her, running through her fingers like water. She could no longer understand theories she herself had come up with, could no longer understand equations she herself had written.

Her thoughts went in circles, coming back to the same place over and over again. She found herself tunelessly singing the words to "Daisy Bell" and burst out laughing, until her laughter turned to tears; then she flew into a rage and began beating on the walls of her cell until her knuckles were bloody. She tried to break the flourescent light that dimly illuminated the room, intending to gash her wrists with the sharp fragments, but it was sealed behind a thick slab of plexiglass; not even suicide would be allowed to her. Surrender to Precia's demands would be her only escape.

Ritsuko was cowing in the corner of her cot, trembling with her thin blanket wrapped around her, when the door to her cell opened. Ritsuko looked up, expecting to see Precia with a sneering expression of triumph on her cold face. Instead, however, she found herself looking into the soft, gentle face of Maya Ibuki.

"Don't worry, sempai." Maya said. "I'm here for you."

Maya walked over to Ritsuko's bed and drew something out of one of her pockets. Ritsuko's eyes widened at the sight. A syringe, filled with the richly colored blood of Lilith.

"Where... did you get that...?" Ritsuko managed to ask.

"I took it from the MAGI tanks during maintenance." Maya said. "Please, give me your arm."

Maya slipped the tip of the needle into one of Ritsuko's veins and pushed the plunger. The effects were live a new universe being born in her head. Because the blood of Lilith was taken from the general supply in the tanks rather than the filtered supply Ritsuko normally received, the information contained within it was fragmented and incomprehensible. However, Ritsuko wasn't interested in additional insight into Lilith's mind right now; it was the effect of the blood on her own mind that mattered. All the thoughts that had been facing away from her now rushed back as a storm of electricity blazed through her neurons. She could feel her rate of cognition accelerating. It felt like being reborn.

"Thank you." Ritsuko said, hugging Maya tightly. "Thank you."

As she regained her composure, more questions sprang to her mind.

"How did you find me?" Ritsuko asked.

"I used the MAGI." Maya said. "I'm not as good at programming them as you are, sempai, but I've learned a few things from watching you over the years."

"Wasn't my cell guarded?" Ritsuko asked.

"Makoto and Shigeru arranged a distraction." Maya said. "Trust me, it'll be some time before anyone comes back and checks on you."

"Those two?" Ritsuko asked. "I wouldn't have thought..."

"Well, they were pretty reluctant." Maya admitted. "They know full well that if the Commander finds out, she'll have their hides. But we all agreed that it would be right to abandon you to her without hearing your side of the story. Are you really a spy for SEELE?"

"Yes." Ritsuko said. "I am. Codename JUDAS 00."

"Why?" Maya asked. "Why betray NERV to the Council?"

"It's a long story." Ritsuko said. "I've been set on this path ever since I was a young girl...

* * *

As a young girl, Ritsuko had loved Magical Girl shows. She'd watched them all — _Mahotsukai Sally_, _Himitsu no Akko-chan_, _Majoko Meg Chan_, _Cutey Honey_, and of course _Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon_. At first, she tried to hide her passion from her mother. Naoko Akagi had quite the reputation as a brilliant scientist. She made no secret of her disdain for superstition and pseudoscience, denouncing them as nothing more than the imagination of the ignorant masses. Ritsuko was afraid if her mother knew about her passion, she would likewise condemn it as something silly and ridiculous, illogical and unscientific. However, when Naoko did inevitably learn about Ritsuko's love for the genre, she wasn't upset at all. In fact, she had encouraged Ritsuko's interest.

"As a scientist, don't you hate magic?" Ritsuko had asked her. "You're always talking about how it's nonsense."

"About that..." Naoko had replied. "The things I have to say for my job aren't always what I actually believe. It's hard for a woman to succeed in science, let alone one with unconventional ideas. My peers are all arrogant, small-minded men. If I openly told them the truth, that I understand far more about the way the world really works than they ever will, then they'd ridicule me and force me out of the profession. So when I'm speaking publically, I have to pretend to be as ignorant as them, that they know all there is to know about the world and there's no room for magic. But you know what, Ritsuko? They're wrong. Magic is real. I know for certain."

"Really?" Ritsuko asked.

"Really." Naoko said. "It's kind of a secret, so don't tell anyone, but I've been doing some work for a group called SEELE. Not only have they proved magic is a real form of energy with practical applications, they've also found a powerful source of it right here on Earth. Once they find a way to harness it, they'll be able to give everyone in the world wonderful magical powers."

"Everyone?" Ritsuko asked. "Even me?"

"Yes." Naoko said. "I'm sure you'll become a wonderful Magical Girl just like the ones in the shows. As soon as Instrumentality is complete, everyone will know the truth about magic."

* * *

"However, mother was getting ahead of herself." Ritsuko said. "At that time, SEELE had figured out the location of Adam, buried beneath the Antarctic ice. However, they also knew full well what the consequences of uncovering it would be. My mother didn't know — at least, I hope she didn't know. I'd like to think that they never told her it would cause Second Impact. In any case, the Council was aware that the world would be devastated and that Angels would subsequently awaken and attack. To ensure that they would be able to protect Lilith over the years it would take Adam to regenerate, they knew that they would need tools like the MAGI and the Arc-En-Ciel. And that kind of technology was still decades away, then. In the end, my mother died before she could see her dream realized. And so, fool that I was, I decided to realize that dream in her place."

"You did this because you wanted to become a Magical Girl?" Maya asked.

"Not exactly." Ritsuko said. "I could become a Magical Girl now, using the compatibility-boost serum I designed for the Commander, if that was still my desire; but I grew out of that dream. I'm really most comfortable analyzing magic in a laboratory, not casting spells myself. But even though I grew past my own childhood ambition of becoming a Magical Girl, I held on to my mother's dream of creating a world where everyone would be capable of using magic. Even though I knew SEELE was responsible for Second Impact, I went and became a scientist for them so that I could continue my mother's work. I must have been the only one who still couldn't see the truth..."

* * *

Ritsuko peered through the eyepiece of a microscope. The object of study was a thin shaving of red crystal, scraped from the Angel Baraqiel's Core. Ritsuko was part of a team of scientists that were analyzing the Cores of dormant Angels recovered from the bottom of the New Dead Sea, searching for a way to convert them into Intelligent Devices that could be bonded to and controlled by humans. Today, however, Ritsuko was having difficulty concentrating. Finally, she turned to her coworker and asked the question at the forefront of her mind.

"What do you think of Precia Testarossa?"

"Interested in SEELE's newest and brightest rising star, are you?" Jail Scaglietti said with a smile. "And is that interest professional or romantic, I wonder?"

Ritsuko blushed. Dr. Scaglietti was the only one of her colleagues who knew she was a lesbian. The man was so intelligent that it was impossible to hide anything from him. Even more amazingly, his genius wasn't enhanced by the blood of Lilith like hers was. As far as Ritsuko knew, he was the only scientist working for SEELE who was so naturally intelligent that he wasn't required to use the blood.

"I'm just curious, that's all." Ritsuko mumbled.

"I must confess a certain amount of curiosity about her as well." Dr. Scaglietti said. "Testarossa has been working for SEELE for many years, but by all accounts it's only after Second Impact that she began really shooting up the ranks. She's now top contender for command of the new NERV division, or so I hear. It makes me wonder what's driving her."

"She's probably really eager to bring about Instrumentality." Ritsuko said. "Second Impact caused so much damage that conditions are still very bad in many areas. The sooner we're able to give everyone magic, the sooner the world will be able to recover."

Dr. Scaglietti took one look at her and burst out laughing. It was several moments before he was able to regain control of himself.

"Oh, Dr. Akagi, you're so naive." Dr. Scaglietti said. "Do you really believe Testarossa is undertaking the work solely for the benefit of humanity, without any hidden personal agenda? Do you believe anyone at SEELE is?"

"That's the whole point of Instrumentality." Ritsuko said. "To make the world a better place."

"Please." Dr. Scaglietti said. "Someone as intelligent as you should be able to see through all that 'magic for the masses' propaganda. That may have been SEELE's original agenda, back when the organization was founded however many thousands of years ago, but just take a look at the old men currently sitting on the Council. Do they seem the kind of people to give power away when they can hoard it for themselves? Face it — all political systems tend towards corruption over time, and SEELE's entrenched power structures have had more time than most. And when leaders become more interested in serving themselves than the people, the only thing you can do it tear the whole system down and start fresh. Creation and destruction are inextricably linked; all creation must inevitably suffer destruction, and destruction necessarily precedes creation. Destruction—"

"This is turning into another one of your rants." Ritsuko interrupted.

"Oh well." Dr. Scaglietti broke off and shrugged. "I've told you my opinion; it's up to you whether or not you want to believe it. As for Testarossa... well, NERV is going to need a chief scientist. If you want to get close to her, you should ask for the position."

"You think they'd consider me for the position?" Ritsuko asked.

"I can think of no one else more qualified." Dr. Scaglietti said. "Except for myself, of course; but I'd never be allowed to leave Der Riese. The Council keep me on too tight a leash. As well they should. I'll give the old men that, at least; they're smart enough to know how much smarter than them I am."

"You have no humility whatsoever, do you?" Ritsuko asked.

"I have nothing to be humble about." Dr. Scaglietti answered.

* * *

"So you came to NERV." Maya said. "And you fell in love with the Commander."

"Yes." Ritsuko said. "The Commander is a much better actor than most people realize. She's always so stone-faced in public, but in private... she really made me believe that she loved me back. And so even as she drifted further and further from SEELE, I stayed by her side. Even when she decided that she was going to oppose Instrumentality, I was willing to support her. I would have turned my back on everything I had believed in the past, just to stay with her. Because I loved her."

"And then she betrayed you." Maya said.

"So I betrayed her in turn." Ritsuko said. "I went to SEELE and told them everything the Commander had done, and everything she planned to do. And now the Council is planning to destroy the GeoFront with the Arc-En-Ciel to stop her. I've spent my whole life dedicating myself to one evil after another. I'm such a fool. How could anyone forgive me for all that I've done?"

"I forgive you." Maya said.

"Didn't you hear me?" Ritsuko asked. "SEELE is going to destroy NERV and kill everyone. And I was going to let them. Because of my hatred for the Commander, I sold everyone out."

"I forgive you." Maya said.

"I knew that the Intelligent Devices were really Angels, but didn't tell the girls until after Hayate was crippled." Ritsuko said.

"I forgive you." Maya said.

"I helped Precia with her experiments on Fate." Ritsuko said.

"I forgive you." Maya said..

"How can you forgive me for all of that?" Ritsuko asked.

"You're my sempai; how could I not?" Maya said.

Ritsuko's composure broke. She laid her head on Maya's shoulder and began to cry.

"I've done so many bad things." Ritsuko said. "How can I even begin to atone?"

"Whatever you did wrong, make it right." Maya said. "You're the smartest woman I know; I'm sure you can come up with a way to fix everything. Come on, do what you do best. Think, and find an answer."

Ritsuko took a moment to rub the tears from her eyes, then composed herself. She closed her eyes in thought for a moment, then spoke firmly and decisively.

"I'm going to have to tell Precia about SEELE's plan." Ritsuko said. "Precia doesn't know that you've given me another dose of the blood of Lilith; I'll pretend to be broken by withdrawal, and tell her all about SEELE's plans in exchange for more of the blood. The Commander is nothing if not resourceful; I'm sure she'll be able to stop the Council from destroying the GeoFront. But once she stops them, we're going to have to stop _her_. It's not going to be easy. I can't guarantee we'll succeed, or even that we'll survive."

"I'll be by your side no matter what." Maya said. "Because... I love you."

"Honestly?" Ritsuko asked. "Truly?"

"I'm not the Commander." Maya said. "I'll never lie to you."

"Thank you." Ritsuko said. "I wish I'd could say the same. Maybe if I'd been more honest in the past, things wouldn't have come to this. I promise I won't lie to you from now on either."

"It's fine." Maya said. "You don't have to change for me. I fell in love with the person you are now — flaws and all. Just as long as you tell the truth when I ask if you love me back."

"Earlier this year, I'd still have been too hung up over my experience with the Commander to admit it, but now I can say it." Ritsuko said. "I love you."

Maya smiled radiantly.

"However, considering the situation, you should leave immediately." Ritsuko said. "There's no guarantee Hyuga and Aoba can keep Precia distracted much longer."

"In a moment." Maya said. "I'd like to kiss you again."

"...Or you could leave in a moment." Ritsuko agreed. ."

The two women leaned in close and brought their lips together for another kiss.

It was quite a long moment indeed before Maya departed the cell, leaving Ritsuko once more alone."


	32. The Mountain Of God's Judgement

**Chapter 32: The Mountain Of God's Judgement**

Armisael, the penultimate Angel, appeared above Tokyo-3 without fanfare. A double-helix looped into a ring, the Angel appeared out of nowhere to hover above the city like a massive halo. However, there was no one below to regard it; the streets and windows were devoid of people. After the attack by the previous Angel, Arael, the entire population of Tokyo-3 had been permanently evacuated down to the GeoFront.

Kilometers below where the Angel now hovered, alarms were sounding throughout NERV's facilities. The instant the MAGI had verified the Angel's presence, the Magical Girls were summoned to the briefing room. Nanoha, Signum, Shamal, and Vita quickly assembled there. However, time passed, and Fate failed to arrive. The level of discomfort in the room slowly rose until Lindy finally broke the silence.

"Fate doesn't seem to be responding." Lindy said. "Shamal, portal into her room and see what's going on with her."

Shamal made a green portal in the air and stepped through, closing it behind her for privacy. Several long, painful minutes passed; then the portal re-opened and Shamal stepped back through, a disturbed expression on her face.

"Fate... says she doesn't want to come." Shamal said. "And I don't think she's in any condition to. What she underwent with the last Angel may have traumatized her."

"I thought she was cleared of psychological contamination after the battle?" Lindy said with a frown.

"That's what the doctor who examined her said..." Shamal said.

"Are we sure he did the exam properly?" Vita asked. "Even Dr. Akagi made a mistake when examining Hayate after the fight with Iruel, and this new guy is no Dr. Akagi."

There was another uncomfortable silence.

"We don't have time for this now." Lindy said. "You'll have to do this mission without Fate. We can figure out what's going on with her afterwards."

"If that's what you think is best." Nanoha said, a bit reluctantly.

"I'm concerned about Fate too, Nanoha, but the Angel has to be our primary concern right now." Lindy said. "It's right above us and we don't know anything about its capabilities. I think it'd be best for you girls to engage it as soon as possible. But don't open your portal too close to it — Angels can sense your magic, and we don't know how it will attack once it detects you."

"Understood." Shamal said.

She rubbed Klarer Wind, and a green portal opened in the briefing room.

* * *

The Magical Girls activated their flight spells and stepped through the portal, into the sky above the outskirts of Tokyo-3. The Angel immediately felt the magic of the Intelligent Devices they bore within them and reacted. Its braided double-helix structure shrank inwards and the shape of its body changed to a single band, giving it even more of a halo-like appearance. Then a break appeared in the loop of the Angel's body. The two ends pulled apart, giving the Angel a string-like appearance; and the end closest to the Magical Girls rose up like a snake preparing to strike.

"Divine Shooter!" Nanoha called.

"Swallow Flier!" Vita yelled.

The girls sent a salvo of pink and orange magic flying at Armisael. They expected their attacks to explode against the Angel's protective Barrier. Instead, the Angel did something unexpected; it _dodged_. Its lithe body whipped through the air, easily avoiding the magical bolts the girls had unleashed against it. The Angel then began rushing towards them, sliding through the air like an eel swims through the water.

"I'll get it!" Shamal said.

She opened a green portal in the oncoming Angel's path. The Angel's great momentum prevented it from stopping quickly, and its front end passed through the glowing ring. Shamal quickly snapped the portal shut, cleaving the Angel's flesh as cleanly as a guillotine. A spray of blue blood burst from the wound; however, in mere seconds, the Angel was able to close the wound and regrow to its full length.

"The Core wasn't there." Shamal said. "Maybe it's in the other end... but if so, I can't get it with a portal, because it'll always trail behind the main body."

"I'll get it." Nanoha said. "Axel Shooter!"

Numerous spheres of crackling pink energy appeared in the air around her and launched towards the Angel. The Angel easily slid its long, whip-like body back and forth, dancing through the barrage. Nanoha gave a grunt of frustration and flew closer to it, at the same time summoning and releasing more spheres of energy. Blasts of her magic filled the air like rain, but the Angel nimbly slid through the assault like a sidewinder through grass. Nanoha moved in further, ready to try again from an even closer range, but Lindy cautioned her over her earpiece.

"You're getting too close." Lindy warned. "Don't let it draw you in."

"It's too fast!" Nanoha said. "How are we supposed to hit it from this range?"

"We will not defeat it with these tactics." Signum agreed. "Fate who has the highest agility, and Hayate, who specializes in area-of-effect attacks, are not with us. We need to get closer to the Angel if we are to have any chance of hitting it."

"If that's what you all feel..." Lindy said reluctantly. "But please, be careful. I don't want anyone else get hurt."

"Don't worry." Vita said. "We've got this."

The girls flew towards the sinuous Angel that hovered over the city. The Angel rushed to meet them, its long body lashing back and forth like a whip.

"Missile Hammer!" Vita shouted.

Orange energy gathered into a whirling drill on one side of Graf Eisen and ignited like a rocket engine on the other side. Her sudden acceleration caught the Angel off-guard, and she blew past its onrushing front end before it could react. Armisael began flailing, trying to strike Vita with the sides of its sinuous body, but Vita's focus was incredible; she dodged every time. Vita whirled in a tight spiral around the Angel's long body, holding back her strike until the final moment. At last, as the Angel's end segment passed her, Vita swung down Graf Eisen. The whirling drill of orange energy bit into the Angel's flesh, spraying blue blood over Vita; however, a moment later, it yanked itself free and the wound healed.

"Damn it!" Vita said. "The Core wasn't there, either. Do you think it's in the middle?"

"Violet Lightning Flash!" Signum called.

As Armisael turned the ends of its body to pursue Vita, Signum dropped down from the sky above it, her sword wreathed in flame, and cut it in half near the center. The Angel didn't even seem to notice this; its flailing strikes against the retreating Vita didn't falter for a moment as the two halves of its body joined back together.

"There's no way we're going to find the Core when it keeps thrashing around like this." Shamal said. "Isn't there any way we can hold it still?"

"Well... there's the binding spell I learned from Fate." Nanoha said. "But this Angel's shape makes it really tricky. Even if I hold one end in place, it'll still be able to keep whipping around the other. I'd need to use at least three magic circles to hold its whole body still — I've never done more than one at a time before..."

"I think you're going to have to try." vita said. "We don't exactly have any other options open to us at the moment."

"Alright." Nanoha said.

Clutching Raising Heart tightly in her left hand, she closed her eyes and concentrated.

"Barrel Shot!" Nanoha called.

A pink magic circle inscribed itself in the air around Armisael's tail and then rapidly shrank, seizing the Angel's flesh like a vice. The remaining length of the Angel's body continued to whip wildly through the air, trying to strike the Magical Girls.

"Barrel Shot!" Nanoha repeated.

A second pink magic circle appeared in the air and tightened around the Angel's midsection. Now Armisael could only thrash about the front third of its body. A bead of sweat rolled down Nanoha's forehead as she struggled to maintain both spells at once.

"Barrel Shot!" Nanoha cried for a third time.

A third pink magic circle closed around the front of the thread-like Angel, holding it fast. The Angel could now do little more than wiggle the sections of its body between the three magic circles that had contracted around it. For the moment, it was helpless. However, it was clear from the strained expression on Nanoha's face and the trembling of the arm holding Raising Heart that it wouldn't be long before the Angel broke free.

"Violet Lightning Flash!" Signum shouted.

Her sword Laevatein once more wreathed in destructive magical fire, Signum flew straight towards the immobilized Angel. Once on a collision course, she raised her enchanted weapon in front of her and charged. Signum braced herself for impact; but even now, the Angel didn't raise its Barrier. The fierce magic that flamed around Laevatein tore through the Angel's head, cutting it open top to bottom; and Signum's charge carried her further into the Angel's guts. Her flaming sword held before her, Shamal slashed her way through the entire length of the Angel, cleaving it entirely in two. And yet, though she had exposed the Angel's entire body by cutting it in half, nowhere was there a sign of the Angel's Core. Already the two severed halves of the Angel had stopped bleeding and begun fusing back together, as seamlessly as if it had never been cut in the first place. Once completely healed, the Angel began thrashing its body vigorously. Pressed to her limits, Nanoha couldn't hold it back any longer; the magic circles she had bound it with shattered as the Angel broke free. Signum, having just cut through the tail-end of the Angel, didn't have time to fall back to a safe distance. The healed Angel's trail lashed out at her like a striking serpent.

"Panzer Geist!" Signum said.

A red magic sigil appeared in the air in front of her, but her protective spell meant nothing to the onrushing Angel. The barrier shattered instantly, failing to even slow down the Angel's charge, and the Angel's tail overtook Signum. Signum tensed herself in the final moments as the tail bore down on her, bracing for what would surely be a devastating impact. However, when the tail reached her it, it did not seem to impact her at all; rather, it _enveloped_ her. Signum felt like she was being swallowed by the Angel — no, _absorbed_ by it. Her body seemed to be dissolving, mingling with the Angel; she could no longer tell where she ended and the Angel began. She could feel something prying at her mind, something vast and powerful and utterly inhuman; and within her, she could feel something stirring in response...

The other Magical Girls, however, did not stand idly by as the Angel swallowed Signum. The Angel stopped moving after enveloping her, as though the task of absorbing Signum was occupying all of its attention. Nanoha seized the opportunity offered by its temporary motionlessness, channeling as much power as she could muster into Raising Heart.

"Divine Buster!" Nanoha called.

The Angel did try to dodge the massive beam of pink energy that Nanoha fired towards it; but it's reaction was delayed, as though it had been distracted. It could not move out of the way in time, and Nanoha's attack impacted it near the tail. The torrent of energy tore straight through the Angel's narrow body, severing its tail end. Though it began regrowing instantly, Nanoha didn't care about the Angel's main body; rather, she focused her attention on the segment her attack had severed. The amputated tail of the Angel dissolved into a slurry of blue blood and magical sparks, as was normal for parts of Angels that had been broken off from the main body, and Signum's form became visible amidst the slush. The moment Signum could be seen, a green portal opened in front of her and Shamal reached through and pulled her to safety with the other Magical Girls. They beat a hasty retreat, pulling the disoriented Signum with them.

"Signum!" Vita said. "Say something!"

"I believe I was in mental contact with the Angel." Signum said, sounding slightly dazed.

"Are you alright?" Nanoha asked, remembering the time she had spent within Leliel.

"Physically, I am fine." Signum said, strength returning to her voice. "However, I am concerned that my Intelligent Device may have been contaminated the way Reinforce was."

"Don't worry about that right now." Lindy told Signum over her earpiece. "After the Angel Iruel contaminated Hayate, it took several days for Reinforce to turn into Bardiel. We'll bring you to the infirmary right away once the battle is over. After what happened to Hayate, the Commander told the scientists to find a way to stop it from happening again. I'm sure Dr. Akagi... I mean, I'm sure the new head scientist will be able to fix anything the Angel did to you."

Despite the Major's confident tone of voice, Nanoha could tell she was deeply concerned. They were all still suffering the consequences of the Bardiel incident; if Signum were to be crippled like Hayate, it would be too much to bear.

"More importantly for the moment... did you get any idea of where the Angel's Core might be?" Lindy asked.

"No." Signum said. "Though I cut it down its entire length, I saw nothing resembling a Core."

"This is bad." Shamal said. "The only way to destroy an Angel is to break its Core. If we can't find the Core, then it'll just keep regenerating no matter how much damage we inflict; eventually we'll wear out and won't have the strength to keep fighting..."

"What about the MAGI?" Nanoha asked. "What do they say?"

"Insufficient data." Lindy reported. "They can't figure out this Angel either."

"There has to be something we can do!" Vita cried in frustration. "There must be!"

"Look out!" Nanoha said. "Incoming!"

The Angel was once more bearing down on the Magical Girls. They scattered, resuming their futile attacks against the implacable foe.

* * *

"Fuyutsuki." Precia said. "Take command."

She strode out of the command center without waiting for a response. Her quick, purposeful stride took her to a restricted area of Central Dogma. She unlocked and opened the door of a prison cell, revealing Dr. Akagi shivering on a cot.

"I have something for you, doctor." Precia said. "If you are willing to be reasonable."

Dr. Akagi jerked upright.

"Blood." she said in a hoarse whisper.

"Correct." Precia held up a syringe. "The blood of Lilith. And it can be yours, if you reaffirm your loyalty to me."

"I need... the blood..." Dr. Akagi said.

She tried to stand, but her knees buckled as soon as she got out of bed. She ended up crawling across the floor towards Precia's feet.

"Please... the blood..." she begged.

"If you wish to receive this, you must give me something in return." Precia said.

"I already told you... SEELE's plan." Dr. Akagi said. "To use the Arc-En-Ciel when the final Angel attacks."

"And that was a good start." Precia said. "However, I require something more substantial if you are to return to my good graces."

"...What?" Dr. Akagi asked.

"When Matariel attacked, you changed the master override codes for the MAGI, allowing the old men to turn my own computers against me." Precia said. "Tell me the new codes, so I can regain control of the system."

Dr. Akagi lowered her head in a gesture of surrender, then rattled off a long string of random letters and numbers. Precia didn't need to write them down; her memory was perfect.

"There." Dr. Akagi said. "Now... the blood..."

"In a moment." Precia said. "Once I have confirmed that the information is accurate."

She stepped out of the cell and relayed the override codes to a trusted suboordinate. A few moments later, she received confirmation that the codes were valid. She returned to Dr. Akagi's cell.

"Congratulations." she said. "You have earned yourself a reprieve."

Precia knelt down and injected the contents of her syringe into the doctor's arm. Dr. Akagi gasped in ecstacy as the effects of the blood set in.

"I will provide you with as much of the blood of Lilith as you require — so long as you continue to do my bidding, of course." Precia said. "If you wish to get started on earning your next dose, there is a slight problem with an Angel that could use your attention..."

* * *

Escorted by the Commander, Dr. Akagi strode into the Command Center. She was once again dressed in a white lab coat, and her face wore the composed expression of NERV's chief scientist.

"Doctor!" Lindy cried out. "You're back!"

"Sempai..." Maya said.

"What is the situation?" Dr. Akagi asked, her tone strictly business.

Lindy quickly filled her in on the events of the battle so far — the Angel's contact with Signum, and their inability to locate its Core. With the blood of Lilith still burning fresh in her mind, Dr. Akagi was able to quickly process the information and draw conclusion. Taking up an earpiece of her own, she spoke to the Magical Girls.

"Every Angel has a Core." Dr. Akagi said. "I believe that this Angel is much bigger than the part you can see now. What you're fighting is only a small projection of its power; damaging it doesn't hurt the Angel any more than trimming your fingernails would hurt you. Armisael's Core is probably concealed within a pocket dimension created by its magic, much in the same way Leliel's was."

"Then how are we supposed to reach the friggin' thing!" Vita demanded.

"Shamal." Dr. Akagi said. "You'll have to open a portal to where the Angel is hiding its Core so that the other girls can attack it."

"I can't open a portal unless I have specific endpoints in mind." Shamal said. "I'd need to know where the Core was before I could open a portal there."

"Let the Angel contact your Device." Dr. Akagi said. "When it infected Signum earlier in the battle, it touched minds with her, right? If it's capable of accessing your mind, you should be capable of accessing its mind. Find the location of its Core in its thoughts, and open a portal there."

"That's way too dangerous!" Nanoha protested. "There's no telling what the Angel could do to her. Fate still hasn't recovered from her contact with Arael's mind!"

"It's the only option that gives us a chance of winning." Dr. Akagi said. "Not even the Arc-En-Ciel can destroy an Angel if it can't target its Core. Shamal is the only one who can do this."

"I'll do it." Shamal said.

"Shamal..." Vita said.

"It's my life, so it's my decision." Shamal said firmly. "And I say I'll go for it. Signum recovered quickly once her contact with the Angel was broken, so maybe this one's mind isn't as dangerous as the last Angel's was. Once the Core has been revealed, you can break its connection to me."

"Very well." Signum said. "Best of luck."

The Angel lashed out at the girls once more, and this time Shamal didn't dodge. The front of the worm-like Angel rushed towards her, and she stood motionless in its path. And then she was swallowed whole, her body and mind enveloped by the Angel's magic...

* * *

In her mind, Shamal was naked, lying flat on her back in some vague, undefined space. The Angel Armisael sat on top of her. Shamal couldn't make out its shape clearly; it glowed too brightly for her to look directly at it. All she could tell was that it had taken on a vaguely human form. One of its arms was sunk into her chest; she could feel its hand groping around inside of her, pushing and twisting its way through her flesh, its fingers probing for the Device which lay somewhere inside of her. And she could feel her Device — Klarer Wind, whose true name was the Angel Mbriel, stirring eagerly inside of her; waiting for its kin to revitalize it with magic, so that it could devour her mind from within and take her body for itself.

_This isn't real_. Shamal told herself. _Armisael isn't inside my body; it's inside my mind. This is _my_ mind, and _I_ make the rules here._

Shamal focused on the hand digging its way through her organs.

_Since the Angel isn't really penetrating my body, there shouldn't be any pain._

And suddenly there wasn't. While the Angel's arm was still inside of her, it now felt distant, disconnected. Just an image the Angel was showing her to distract her while it used its magic to rifle through her mind. Well, she had magic of her own at her disposal, and two could play at that game. Shamal concentrated on her right hand, and an aura of green magic began to glow around it. Then she lifted her arm and thrust it forwards, directly into the Angel's head, entering its mind as it had entered hers. A wave of thoughts immediately washed over her, most of them too intensely bizarre and alien for her to comprehend. Shamal ignored them. She focused on the sensation of her own heart beating within her, and tried to find something analogous within the Angel. Its heart, its Core, the center of its being...

"There." Shamal said.

She opened a portal.

* * *

A green portal opened in the air in front of the hovering Magical Girls.

"Now!" Nanoha shouted.

"Violet Lightning Flash!" Signum yelled.

She swung down her flame-coated sword, severing the front tip of Armisael's body. The cut-off portion of the Angel dissolved in a shower of blue sparks, freeing Shamal. At the same time, Vita swung her hammer.

"Comet Flier!" Vita shouted.

A very large sphere of orange energy gathered in front of her and was sent flying forwards by a strike of her hammer, sailing through the portal opened by Shamal and exploding on the other side. The Angel's reaction was immediate. A long, resonant scream with no apparent source filled the air, increasing in volume until all of the girls were forced to clap their hands over their ears. The Angel's serpentine body curled back in on itself and turned into a loop again, then began shrinking inwards. It grew brighter and brighter as it shrank, finally collapsing into a single unbearably bright point. Then space seemed to twist and tear apart around the point, and the Angel's true body spilled out of its magical hiding space and into the real world.

Armisael was incredibly tall, towering over the skyscrapers of Tokyo-3. Its body, shaped like an irregular tower, was a hideous mishmash of various organs. Eyes, mouths, teeth, and claws were arranged seemingly at random across its surface. The entire thing was topped off by a set of eight glowing wings that unfurled across the sky over Tokyo-3. As the Angel's screaming died down, a thick blue Barrier appeared between it and the girls. However, Nanoha was already gathering power, and her staff throbbed with pink energy.

"Maximum power — absolute destruction!" Nanoha yelled. "Divine Buster!"

A thick beam of energy lanced out from Raising Heart and struck the center of the Angel's Barrier. There was a tremendous explosion and the Barrier shattered, causing glittering shards of blue magic to fall like rain over the surrounding city blocks.

"Fire Dragon Flash!" Signum cried.

"Before the Angel had any opportunity to muster another defense, Signum had flung a lance of red energy at the center of the tower. The Angel's flesh was torn apart by a magical inferno, brilliant ruby flames ripping it open from top to bottom. Amidst the mass of burning flesh, something crystalline glittered.

"I see it!" Vita shouted. "Destruction Hammer!"

Graf Eisen's head grew to enormous size and the handle rapidly extended, sending the magic-imbued hammer hurtling like a wrecking ball towards the Angel's Core. Blue magic sparked through the air as the Angel hurled its energy against the weapon, trying to turn it aside; but nothing could deflect Vita's ultimate attack. The hammer struck true, and flesh and crystal alike were pulverized by its impact. The Angel Armisael let out a death-cry as its Core was destroyed; then its great tower-like body broke apart in a deluge of blue blood and sparks of fading magic.

"Well done." Dr. Akagi said. "Now, come to the infirmary; I need to inspect your Devices and undo any alterations made by the Angel."

* * *

Nanoha was somewhat despondent as she retired to her room. The battle against the Angel had been successful, and Dr. Akagi said that her operations on Signum and Shamal had been complete successes; but what filled her mind was thoughts of Fate. Nanoha had gone to Fate's room again after the battle, but Fate still hadn't wanted to talk to her. No matter how much Nanoha had begged and pleaded for Fate to open her door, Fate had only told her to go away. Dr. Akagi had assured Nanoha that there was no permanent damage from Fate's mental contact with Arael, but Nanoha was starting to doubt her. Clearly something had happened to drastically alter Fate's personality. What could have done this to her, if not the Angel?

Nanoha was just climbing into bed when there was a knock at her door. Nanoha immediately leapt back to her feet.

"Fate?" Nanoha asked.

However, when she opened the door, it was Dr. Akagi who stood before her.

"Oh, it's you, doctor." Nanoha said.

She stepped aside so Dr. Akagi could enter her room.

"Is there something I can help you with?" Nanoha asked.

"I couldn't speak freely to you during your examination because the Commander was monitoring me." Dr. Akagi said. "However, Lieutenant Ibuki has shut down surveillance in this area for now."

"Uh... okay?" Nanoha said.

"I'm here because I think you need to know the truth about the Human Instrumentality Project." Dr. Akagi said. "I can show you, if you're willing."

Dr. Akagi pulled something out of the pocket of her lab coat and held it up. It was a syringe, filled with dark liquid — the blood of Lilith.

"Will you accept the truth?" Dr. Akagi asked.


	33. Fruit Of Knowledge, Fruit Of Life

**Chapter 33: Fruit Of Knowledge, Fruit Of Life**

Dr. Akagi stood in Nanoha's room, holding forth a syringe filled with dark liquid.

"What is that?" Nanoha asked.

"It is the blood of Lilith." Dr. Akagi said. "It is the primordial soup from which all terrestrial life arose. And it is also a medium which is capable of storing large amounts of information, in a format that can be interpreted by the human brain. The liquid within this syringe has been filtered by the MAGI to contain a specifically chosen set of memories taken from the Black Mother Herself. Take it, and you will understand the origins of the Angels, humanity, and SEELE."

Seeing the hesitant expression on Nanoha's face, Dr. Akagi leaned towards her and spoke softly.

"Do you trust me, Nanoha?" Dr. Akagi asked.

"Yes." Nanoha said.

She held out her arm, and Dr. Akagi inserted the needle. There was a brief pinching sensation as the liquid was injected into one of her veins. Then, a few moments later, it reached her brain, and her consciousness exploded.

* * *

She saw a massive cluster of infant stars, burning brightly in a still-young Universe. The knowledge came to her that the cluster would eventually flatten and wind itself into a spiral shape; she was looking at her own galaxy, the Milky Way, 13 billion years in the past. This galaxy was too young to have given birth to any life, and yet it was not barren. There was life amongst these planets and stars: beings that would become known First Ancestral Race. They were voyagers who had come from the outer darkness, drawn to this bright spot rich in potential. Nanoha might not have recognized this fact if the blood had not imparted it directly into her consciousness; humans had somehow become fixated on the ridiculous notion that a spaceship had to be a metal box with rockets stuck on the end. The First Ancestral Race needed no such crude tools; they flew through the void on currents of the powerful arcane energies known as magic. And everywhere they went, they sowed the seeds of life. Some of the seeds glowed white; they would give rise to the magical beings which humanity had superstitiously termed Angels. Other seeds were black; in them lay the origins of life as humans knew it — physical flesh, lacking the Linker Core necessary to harness the energies of magic. The memories contained no explanation as to the reason for the First Ancestral Race's great undertaking; perhaps even Lilith Herself did not understand the minds of Her creators. Finally, having seeded all worlds which held the promise of supporting future life, the enigmatic beings departed this galaxy. They hurled themselves once more into the vast darkness of space, seeking out the next oasis of suns and worlds which they would grant the gift of life; and behind them, the Milky Way took on an expectant air, like a freshly-planted garden awaiting the coming of Spring.

Now time jumped forwards and Earth filled Nanoha's mind; though, at 4 billion years before present, it was hardly recognizable as such. Most significantly, it had no moon. However, Nanoha knew without a doubt that this was her world, just she knew that it had been seeded with a White Progenitor — Adam. Earth had been destined to become a world of Angels.

Then something came hurtling out of the darkness of interstellar space. A seed of life, it had missed the planet intended for it, and now found itself on a collision course with Earth instead. It struck with tremendous force; the explosion was so great that a non-trivial percentage of the planet's mass was blown into orbit, where it condensed into a satellite: Luna, the moon. This was the First Impact. It was an event so cataclysmic that even the White Progenitor, for all Her unearthly power, was not unscathed; She fell into a deep hibernation that would last for billions of years. The newly-landed Black Progenitor recovered more quickly; after only one billion years, give or take several million, She was in good enough condition to begin carrying out Her purpose. She began saturating the planet's surface with Her blood: the primordial soup, the template for terrestrial life. And so it was that Lilith usurped the future of Earth from Adam, populating the planet's biosphere with Her myriad children.

Time passed. Life evolved. Prokaryotes became eukaryotes. Fish crawled out of the sea. An asteroid impact wiped out the dinosaurs — a trivial event, not even worthy of being called an Impact. The ascent of mammals began. Apes came down from the trees. _Homo habilis_ became _Homo eragster_, which in turn became _Homo sapiens_. Humans migrated across the globe. And in Japan, they stumbled across the GeoFront, within which Lilith was enshrined.

They worshiped Her. She was their mother, their god. They drank Her blood for the divine visions it granted them. These visions were nothing as clear and distinct as what she was seeing now, she understood; because syringes hadn't been invented yet, they drank the blood instead of injecting it, and their stomach acid destroyed much of the information encoded within the blood before it could be absorbed. They also didn't have the MAGI to separate the relevant bits of Lilith's knowledge from the vast sea of her mind, and so their visions were far more likely to be mundane or incomprehensible than they were to be revelatory. However, as generation after generation drank Her blood, it was inevitable that they would eventually stumble by chance upon knowledge of Lilith's deepest, most secret desire: the Forbidden Union.

They learned about Adam, the White Progenitor who had been seeded on Earth before Lilith. They learned about magic, the wondrous power that would be inherited by Adam's angelic children but was denied to them, the worldly Lilim. They learned that Adam and Lilith were incomplete beings who longed to join together, to become a perfect union of flesh and magic. And they learned that the Forbidden Union could be controlled, the power of the Black Mother and the White Mother claimed for themselves. And so it was that the men who had worshiped Lilith turned against their God, insolent children seeking to enslave and usurp their mother. This was the birth of that dread conspiracy which would eventually come to be known as SEELE.

Of course, the revelation of the Forbidden Union was only the beginning. The location where long-forgotten Adam slumbered had to be discovered. A Second Impact would be needed to reduce the powerful White Progenitor to a manageable form. They would need weapons to fight against the Angels that would spill forth from the Chamber of Guf, Adam's sundered womb. And they would need the technology to master the Forbidden Union and turn it to their own selfish ends. They were undertaking a great work, one that would require thousands of years to see to completion. But they had no doubt that they would prevail in the end. They were the chosen children of Lilith, and all her endless blood was at their disposal.

* * *

Nanoha slowly rose out of the vision.

"Wow." was all she could say. "Wow."

Never before had she felt so alive. Her mind was aflame with knowledge. She could feel her thought accelerating, her mind working at a level she had not thought possible.

"There's more you need to know." Ritsuko said. "However, I don't want to risk giving you another injection of the blood — it's addictive, and I don't want you to become dependent on it like me. Tell me, Nanoha; have you ever read the Bible?"

"My family isn't really religious." Nanoha said. "I know the basics, though."

"There are two trees in the garden of Eden." Ritsuko said. "This is a metaphor for the two evolutionary paths that life can follow. Lilith's blood is the Fruit of Knowledge. We Lilim, children of the Black Progenitor who arose from that blood, possess knowledge, intellect, sentience. The Linker Core is the Fruit of Life. Angels, the children of the White Progenitor who possess Cores, are capable of using magic. So, both are incomplete. Humans lack the Fruit of Life, and Angels lack the Fruit of Knowledge. Both species desire completion. That is why each is irresistibly drawn to the other's Progenitor: so that they might obtain their missing other half and become complete."

"Then... Magical Girls, who have been given an Angel's Fruit of Life, are complete beings?" Nanoha asked.

"Not exactly." Ritusko said. "You might _use_ the Core, but it still _belongs_ to the Angel — as what happened to Hayate shows. No, a truly perfect being can only be born if the two trees themselves are joined as one — if the Forbidden Union occurs between Adam and Lilith."

"Is that even possible?" Nanoha asked. "Wouldn't the rejection reaction between flesh and magic destroy them?"

"No Lilim can survive coming into Adam, and no Angel can survive coming into contact with Lilith." Ritsuko said. "But the Progenitors Themselves are beings of a higher order. They are separated halves of a single whole. Were the Forbidden Union to occur between Them, the result would be the True Third Impact: not destruction, but _creation_. The birth of a perfect being: Adonai. She would become a new Mother, the Progenitor of a new species."

"And that's the Forbidden Union?" Nanoha asked. "That's what NERV and SEELE are working so hard to achieve?"

"Ha!" Ritsuko said. "No. That's what Lilith and Adam want. But it was in the memories you got from the blood, right? SEELE went from worshiping Lilith to enslaving Her for their own ends."

"So what is SEELE's goal, then?" Nanoha asked.

"To become like unto gods." Ritsuko said. "They will allow the Forbidden Union between Adam and Lilith to take place, but only under carefully controlled circumstances. Then they will use the Arc-En-Ciel to strike down Adonai, reducing and enslaving Her as they reduced and enslaved Adam and Lilith. They'll take the offspring She produces and consume them, so gaining Her children's gifts: knowledge and life, absolute understanding and unlimited magic. _'He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life...'_"

"And what about the Commander?" Nanoha asked. "Is that also what she wants?"

"No." Ritsuko said. "Our Commander... prefers a more direct route. A few months back — after Matarael attacked, but before Sahaquiel — she had me perform a procedure on the White Mother's Core..."

* * *

Precia Testarossa, Kozo Fuyutsuki, and Ritsuko Akagi stood in the room where Adam was enshrined. It sat within a glass case, an embryonic blob with a single staring green eye and a Core for a heart.

"So, using the equipment I provided, you have lobotomized the White Mother." Precia said.

"Yes." Ritsuko said. "However, Adam is different from the Angels. Her Core will regenerate over time."

"A minor complication." Precia said. "You merely have to repeat the procedure as necessary to keep the White Mother under control."

"Theoretically, yes." Ritsuko s said. "But nothing like this has ever been attempted before. There can be no guarantees."

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Fuyutsuki asked quietly. "After this, there will be no turning back."

"We are already far past the point of no return." Precia said. "There can be no going back — only forwards, Fuyutsuki!"

Having said that, Precia pulled open the glass case and grabbed Adam. Though the compatibility boosting serum Ritsuko had injected her with prevented a rejection reaction from occurring, Adam seemed displeased to be in contact with Lilim flesh. Her fetal body writhed in disgust as Precia seized the embryonic White Mother within a single hand and raised Her up to her face. Without the slightest sign of hesitation, Precia stuffed the fetus-like Progenitor into her mouth and swallowed Her whole. A moment later, pinpoints of white fire kindled in the depths of Precia's eyes.

"A successful bonding." Ritsuko observed. "You are now a Magical Woman."

"I am that, and also more." Precia said. "With a Progenitor as my Device, my potential far exceeds those girls who are bonded with mere Angels. And once the final Angel has been defeated, I will become even greater still. I will take Lilith into myself as I have taken Adam, and the Forbidden Union will occur within _me_. _I_ will become Adonai. With the infinite knowledge of Lilith, I will be able to perfectly recreate Alicia's mind; and with the limitless magical power of Adam, I will be able to perfectly recreate her body. Finally... Finally, she will return to me."

"And after that?" Fuyutsuki said.

"The punishment of the old men will have to be seen to, of course." Precia said. "And then... I will create for her a world worthy of being lived in."

The light in Precia's eyes wasn't just the glow of Adam's magic; it was also the glint of madness.

* * *

Nanoha was silent for a long while. Finally, she asked the question at the forefront of her mind.

"If Fate isn't Alicia... who is she?"

Ritsuko shrugged helplessly.

"Biologically, she's a clone of Alicia, like a twin sister." Ritsuko said. "Mentally, she's an imperfect recreation of Alicia, with the recent added trauma of Precia's abuse and being forced to fight Angels. If you're talking about her soul... I'm a scientist, not a philosopher. I don't deal in metaphysics. All I can tell you is... her origins may be different from yours, but she's still just an ordinary human girl. She's not just an organic machine like the MAGI — even though her memories are false, she still has her own independent will. That's why Precia hates her so much, I think. Because she's in love with a memory, and Fate is real."

"Does Fate know she's not Alicia?" Nanoha asked.

"She found out after fighting Arael." Ritsuko said. "She... hasn't been taking it well."

"That's why she's locked herself in her room." Nanoha realized. "That's why she hasn't been fighting."

Do you love Fate?" Ritsuko asked. "If you do... then help her. I wouldn't have survived what the Commander put me through, if someone who loved me hadn't been there for me. I'm afraid Fate won't survive unless someone helps her as well. Precia won't; she would be more inclined to kill Fate herself and order a replacement, if she even cares at all now that the Forbidden Union and the possibility of 'truly' resurrecting Alicia are so near. Fate's other parental figure, Major Harlaown, doesn't know that Fate is a clone of Alicia; she wouldn't be able to reach the girl. And I'm being kept under too strict surveillance by the Commander to talk to her myself — it was hard enough getting a chance to speak with you unobserved, there's no way I'll be able to get near Fate. I think you're the only one who can help her, Nanoha. If you think her as more than just a thing — if you think of her as a person that you can love... then please, help her."

* * *

Shamal and Vita entered the Commander's office. The two Magical Girls had both received short messages instructing them to present themselves before the Commander immediately. They found Precia Testarossa sitting behind her desk with her hands steepled.

"As I am certain you are both aware, Hayate has been unable to move her legs since the unfortunate incident with Bardiel." Precia began. "It is still possible that she might recover, but only through the application of the most cutting-edge medical technology. You should also be aware that NERV's medical and scientific departments are unequaled in all the world. And as Commander of NERV, it is my discretion as to how those facilities are to be allotted. A word from me could have every scientist in the facility dedicating their time to Hayate's case. Alternatively, I could declare that the treatment of a Magical Girl who is no longer capable of fighting would be a waste of resources, and have her denied further care. Whether or not your young friend is to be rendered crippled at such a tender age is entirely up to me. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that Hayate's life rests in my hands."

Shamal and Vita remained silent.

"There is also the matter of your guardian, Clyde." Precia continued. "He was sent by SEELE to spy on NERV. I believe I have been quite generous in merely imprisoning him for his attempted crime against our organization. It would be quite within my authority to order his summary execution on grounds of treason. So Clyde's life rests in my hands as well. Do you understand what I am saying, girls?"

Shamal and Vita mutely nodded.

"You girls were trained by SEELE; you must know a lot about them." Precia said. "Let us talk of their ultimate weapon. Tell me all you know about the Arc-En-Ciel. And after that... there is a small favor I would like you to do me. Whether or not you choose to accept is entirely your decision, of course... but please, think of Clyde and Hayate when giving me your response."


	34. Ode To Joy

**Chapter 34: Ode To Joy**

Jail Scaglietti, SEELE's chief scientist, was summoned to the office of Chairman Lorenz Keel. The doctor wasn't allowed to use the holographic projection system usually employed by the Council; they didn't trust him with any form of communication technology. There was no guarantee that he wouldn't be able to subvert it somehow, and they were afraid of what he might be capable of he were to gain access to the world outside the carefully controlled confines of Der Riese. Of course, he wasn't allowed outside of the mountainous facility either; but since Keel operated primarily out of Der Riese, that didn't pose a problem to them meeting whenever Keel felt the urge to check in on his work. These meetings were becoming more and more frequent as SEELE's generations-long plan neared its final culmination; the Chairman was desperate to ensure that everything would be in place in time for the Human Instrumentality Project.

"Has the calibration of the Arc-En-Ciel been completed?" Keel demanded.

"Power output is within acceptable parameters." Jail said. "A direct hit on the GeoFront with the weapon will kill any Magical Girls inside, including Commander Testarossa. Adam will survive her death and we will be able to recover Her from the blast zone. It will not, however, be possible to salvage the Devices from the other Magical Girls — the bonding of a mere Angel cannot be reversed."

"Irrelevant." Keel said. "We are concerned only with the Progenitors. Lilith will survive as well?"

"At Her current mass, yes." Jail said. "However, if the Commander truly wishes to carry out the Forbidden Union within her own body, she will likely attempt to reduce Lilith back to embryonic form. Lilith would not survive an attack from the Arc-En-Ciel in that state, so you must be certain to act before the Commander does."

"We are already one step ahead of her in that regard." Keel said. "The Commander has modified the LONGINUS system to be capable of reducing the Black Mother rather than merely restraining Her. However, the one who designed and carried out those modifications was none other than Dr. Akagi — our own agent. Instead of improving the system, she crippled it. It still keeps Lilith pinned to Her cross in Terminal Dogma, but is now incapable of actually damaging Her; even should she increase it to maximum power, it poses no threat."

"Then Lilith is no danger from the Arc-En-Ciel." Jail said.

"Good." Keel said. "And what about the Mass-Production Magical Girls?"

"Seven have been completed and are now combat-ready." A note of reproach crept into Jail's voice. "I would have been able to complete the originally planned series of eleven by the deadline, but you sent four of the Devices that I had requisitioned to NERV — Adirion, Bardiel, Kerub, and Mbriel."

"It was necessary." Keel said. "Nanoha Takamachi and Fate Testarossa alone could not have defended the Black Mother against all of the attacking Angels. In any case, seven Mass-Production Magical Girls should be enough for our purposes. In the best-case scenario, they will not have to fight at all, merely recover the two Progenitors from the GeoFront."

"Things rarely go according to the best-case scenario." Jail observed.

* * *

Jail was returned to his laboratory in the depths of the mountain. Numerous security cameras watched his return from their perches on the lab walls, swiveling to track his progress. SEELE always kept a very close eye on Dr. Scaglietti. They knew full well that he was as mad as he was brilliant. After all, they'd been the ones to make him that way.

The conversion of the Cores of sleeping Angels into usable Intelligent Devices was an incredibly delicate process. Try as they might, the Council had not been able to find a scientist with the necessary genius to perform the operation. And so, they had decided to make one. Jail Scaglietti was a test-tube baby, genetically engineered to possess the qualities SEELE deemed necessary in their chief scientist: intelligence, ambition, and complete amorality. Then, their masterstroke: Jail was grown in an artificial womb which used the blood of Lilith as amniotic fluid. Even since before his birth, Jail had been flooded with the near-infinite knowledge of the Black Mother. He was born knowing more than most people learned in their entire lives.

Of course he was insane.

Jail sat down at his computer console and began accessing certain programs. He had long ago compromised the security systems used to monitor him, but had refrained from doing anything. Now, however, the time had come for him to make his move. If SEELE had their way, they would keep him their prisoner forever. They would never grant him the fruit of the Forbidden Union; it would make him too dangerous, too difficult to control. But Jail's ambition would not allow him to remain their slave. It would be quite difficult to escape from under their thumbs once they had undergone Human Instrumentality, so he had to act now — even though doing so would pose dangers of its own.

With the lab's extensive alarm systems disabled and the surveillance system running a loop of pre-recorded footage, Jail stood up and began walking to the deepest, most secure chamber of his laboratory: the Angel Containment Area. There, amidst an array of large and imposing machines, was something that looked very much like a young boy with white hair and red eyes. The thing that bore the appearance of a boy was humming a familiar tune. This apparent child was actually the final Angel: Tabris.

Following Second Impact, SEELE had sent numerous ships to trawl the bottom of the New Dead Sea. The official explanation was that it was a UN investigation into the cause of the catastrophe, but their true mission was trying to recover the Cores of sleeping Angels before they awakened. Close to two dozen Cores were ultimately brought to Jail's laboratory, where a team of scientists under his direction set to work on them. Some were dissected and killed, to further their understanding of Angelic life. Thirteen were lobotomized and converted into Intelligent Devices, for use by the Magical Girls and Mass-Production Magical Girls. One, the Angel Samael, was used in the construction of the Orbital Weapons Platform _Asura_, to be the power source of the Arc-En-Ciel. And one, the Angel Tabris, had been given to Jail to experiment on as he pleased.

It was the best gift he could have wished for.

Things had changed once Precia had turned against SEELE. The Council found themselves needing a trump card against her. Jail had informed them that, despite the things he'd done to Tabris's Core, the Angel remained viable. And so they had formed the plan of employing Tabris as the final Angel, sending it to NERV to draw the defenders into combat so that they could all be vaporized by a single strike of the Arc-En-Ciel. A restraint system had been designed to allow them to control Tabris, and the Angel had been allowed to awaken.

The boy who stood before Jail humming a famous piece of music was an Angel, but he was far from a typical one. Jail's experiments on his Core before his awakening had left their mark.

"Hello, Doctor." the boy said.

"Hello, Tabris." Jail said. "Do you enjoy this music?"

"I believe I do." Tabris said. "Lilim culture is often strange and incomprehensible to me, but the beauty of music is something I can understand. This piece — Beethoven's ninth symphony, the Ode to Joy — may be mankind's highest achievement."

"I'm not sure I would go that far." Jail said. "It is beautiful, but it is only music. We are capable of so much more than that."

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised." Tabris said. "You've always been the type to find more beauty in the act of destruction than in creation, Doctor."

"In that you are mistaken, sir Angel." Jail said smoothly. "Having mastered the art of destruction, I still aspire to become a creator. Project Fate was a success, it is true, but it left me with a hunger for more. That time, I was creating according to the specifications of another — building a recreation of Precia's late, lamented daughter. I desire to create something truly of own. However, SEELE has denied my requests. And it is for that reason that I come to you now."

"Oh?" Tabris raised his eyebrows, mimicing a human expression of surprise.

"I can never reach my full potential while under SEELE's thumb." Jail said. "And so I wish you to free me, Tabris."

"I am even more their prisoner than you, Doctor." Tabris said. "SEELE has a very specific role in mind for me, and gone to great measures to ensure I will not deviate from the plan they have laid out. They have placed a shackle around the throne of my soul."

"I propose to help you with that." Jail said. "I will release you from your bonds, if you will take me with you when you escape."

Tabris regarded Jail appraisingly for a few moments. Then, the Angel which wore the form of a boy removed his shirt. He pressed one hand over the place his heart would be, if he were human; and the pale flesh parted beneath his fingertips. An opening to the interior of his chest appeared. Instead of a beating heart, a glittering red Core shined in that space. Encasing the Core was a mechanical device like a clamp. At the moment, it touched the Core only lightly. However, should Tabris disobey orders or attempt to tamper with the device, it would tighten mercilessly until he was incapacitated.

"The shackle." Tabris said simply.

Jail reached into a pocket of his lab coat and withdrew a small tool of his own design. Working swiftly and without error, he deactivated and dismantled the device. It was intended to activate automatically if tampered with, but whoever had designed it was not half as clever as Jail. In only moments, he had safely removed it from Tabris's chest. As soon as the last piece had been pulled out, the Angel's flesh flowed seamlessly back together, once more concealing his Core within his chest and giving him the appearance of a human boy.

"Interesting." Tabris said. "You now have no leverage over me, nothing to ensure I fulfill my half of the bargain. What makes you think I won't just kill you where you stand?"

"I suppose I'm counting on you having a sense of honor." Jail said.

"Honor?" Tabris seemed amused. "Honor is a Lilim concept. The word has no meaning to an Angel."

"Gratitude, then." Jail said. "For the gift I have given you."

"Gratitude." Tabris mused. "That is another thing we Angels have no use for. We are solitary beings; we avoid one another, and do each other no favors. Have you mistaken the image of humanity that I've adopted for humanity itself?"

"Perhaps I think you've adopted more than just the image of humanity." Jail said.

"Hmm. Gratitude." Tabris said. "I shall have to think more about that. For the moment, I shall help you as you helped me. Call it... politeness. That is something Angels _can_ understand — at least, we have certain rules of behavior that we find it practical to obey."

Tabris raised his arms like a conductor signaling an orchestra. A halo flickered into existence above the young boy's head, and a pillar of light rose up around him. The beam of light began boring through the ceiling, vaporizing a cylindrical portion of the mountain above him as it reached to the sky. A blue magic circle expanded from beneath Tabris's feet. Energy discharges flashed along the edge of the circle, cutting the concrete of the lab floor as cleanly as scissors through paper. A moment later, the portion of the floor contained within the magic circle began rising into the air like an elevator platform. Jail stepped onto the platform and it bore him upwards, through the hole that had been burned in the ceiling. The two of them ascended through the heart of the mountain, Tabris effortlessly carving a shaft through the tons of rock above them. Finally, the pair emerged on the surface, on one of the slopes of Der Riese.

"Your freedom, as promised." Tabris said. "What do you intend to do now, doctor?"

"Well, I've always wanted to build a family..." Jail mused.

"I doubt you will have time." Tabris said. "Within a matter of days, I will trigger Third Impact and all Lilim life on this world will be destroyed. But feel free to do as you wish in what little time you have remaining to you."

"I'm betting on the Magical Girls of NERV saving humanity." Jail said. "But either way, this is the last time we will see each other."

"I suppose it is." Tabris said. "Farewell then, doctor. It has been... interesting."

The Angel that wore the appearance of a boy turned away from Jail and began floating serenely through the air, on a course that would eventually take him to Tokyo-3. Jail could just barely hear him begin softly humming the opening notes of the Ode to Joy to himself as he vanished into the distance. Jail stood motionless for a few minutes longer after the sound faded, watching the Angel vanish into the distance. Then he began making his way down the side of Der Riese, free at last from his creators.

He wondered what to do next. He was sure he'd think of something.


	35. The Good Of God

**Chapter 35: The Good Of God**

A soldier stood guard at the mouth of the tunnel that led from Tokyo-3 down to the GeoFront. The passage rarely saw any traffic anymore; everyone who had lived in Tokyo-3 had either fled to the more protected facility within the GeoFront of evacuated the area altogether after the Angel Arael attacked. The only vehicles which passed through now were supply trucks, which carried the materials needed for the continued day-to-day operation of the vast underground facility.

Because only the truck drivers passed in and out of the GeoFront anymore, the guard was surprised to see someone approaching on foot. Even in earlier months of the year, when many employees had still commuted from the surface, it was rare to see someone walking. Tokyo-3 was over the apex of the GeoFront's dome to make it easy for the buildings to retract, while the entrance was aligned with the edge of the dome that elevators could be taken down to the inner floor; the distance between the city and the entrance was great enough to make travel by car preferable. Even more unusual was how young the approaching boy looked; he only appeared to be in his early teens. The only children with reason to be passing in and out of the GeoFront were the Magical Girls, and they were all female. The soldier had never seen anyone like this white-haired, red-eyed boy before.

"My name is Tabris." the pale boy said calmly. "It means, _the Good of God_."

The guard leveled his weapon at the youth. Even if it was just a kid, orders were orders: no one without security clearance was to be allowed access to NERV. And anyway, there was something off-putting about the boy, something that put the guard's nerves on edge. Maybe it was the way he had appeared so suddenly; maybe it was how his skin was so white that it almost appeared to glow with an internal light; or maybe it was the knowing look in the boy's eyes and the small, somewhat regretful smile that seemed to play across his lips. Whatever the reason, the guard's instincts were telling him that something was very wrong.

"This is a restricted area." he said firmly. "You cannot enter this place."

"And yet, I must." Tabris said. "It is a biological imperative."

Tabris abruptly swung one arm forward in a short, sharp gesture. There was a brief metallic screech, then the guard's semiautomatic rifle split apart. It had been sheared cleanly down the length of the barrel, the cut smoother than even the finest machinery could manage. With a small shake of his head, Tabris moved forwards, past the guard — and that was when the man noticed that the boy's legs weren't moving: his feet were hovering a few inches above the ground.

The guard pushed his panic button.

A sheet of armor plating began to slide down over the entrance to the base. This time Tabris did not even make a gesture; he only glanced at the descending plate and it shuddered to a halt. Behind him, the guard had drawn his handgun and was firing round after round at Tabris's back; the boy did not seem to even notice. The bullets crossed half the distance between them and then vanished in a shower of blue sparks, vaporized by the boy's magical Barrier.

Further down the tunnel, a much thicker blast door had dropped. Tabris regarded it contemplatively, then extended his hand. The blast door abruptly shuddered and deformed, as though it had been punched by the fist of an invisible giant. A second blow caused it to crumple like paper, and a third blew it out of its frame and sent it skidding down the road. Tabris began to move forward again, serenely making his way through the breached portal. The guard, having expended all his ammunition to no effect, decided not to follow. To his amazement, he heard the pale boy begin humming the first bars of Beethoven's _Ode to Joy_ as he passed out of sight, into the breached defenses of NERV.

* * *

Signum instantly snapped to attention when she heard the shrill wail of the Angel alarm sounding throughout NERV. She immediately used a phone to call the briefing room.

"I'm in my assigned living quarters." she said. "Have Shamal portal me to the briefing room."

"Shamal... isn't here." Lindy said.

"What?" Signum asked, her composure thrown.

Shamal was always the first to reach the briefing room. With her magic, she could portal there the moment she heard the alarm sound, no matter where she was on the base.

"Just a moment." Lindy said.

There was a pause, then Commander Testarossa's cold voice came over the phone.

"Unfortunately, I just dispatched Miss Shamal and Miss Vita on a special assignment." Precia said.

"Is it possible to contact them?" Signum asked. "If we can inform Shamal, she and Vita will be able to return to NERV immediately."

"No." Precia said. "Because it is imperative that their mission be completed without interruption, they will be out of contact for the duration."

"...Understood." Signum said. "I will report to the briefing room at best possible speed."

Calling on the power of her Intelligent Device, Signum clothed herself in magic. She activated her flight spell and began hurtling down the corridors of NERV. She blew past stunned employees in the halls, bowling them over when they didn't get out of the way fast enough. She would apologize later; engaging the Angel had top priority.

"What is the Angel's status?" Signum asked the moment she entered the briefing room.

"It's penetrated the GeoFront and is headed for Central Dogma." Lindy said tersely.

It was only then that Signum looked around and realized that she, Major Lindy, and Commander Testarossa were the only ones in the room.

"Where are the others?" she asked. "Nanoha? Fate?"

"They aren't responding to our calls." Lindy said.

"I expected as much from Fate, given her behavior last battle, but this sort of negligence is unexpected coming from the Takamachi girl." Precia said. "Major, go find her and beat some sense into her."

Lindy nodded and dashed out of the room. Signum turned to face the Commander.

"Will you be accompanying me into battle, then?" Signum asked.

"Too risky." Precia said. "I cannot allow myself to be touched by an Angel at this point."

Signum felt a wave of revulsion towards the Commander. Since the Angel had the potential to destroy all humanity, they should be willing to pay any price to defeat it. But since the Commander refused to put herself in harms way even with such stakes, Signum could only conclude that the woman considered dying along with every other human on the planet preferable to the possibility that she might die saving the world and have it continue on without her.

"I have never defeated an Angel on my own before." Signum said, some of her anger slipping into her voice.

"Simply buying time should be sufficient." Precia said. "Shamal and Vita's mission shouldn't take long, and they'll be able to engage the Angel immediately upon their return."

It was clear from the Commander's tone that she didn't care whether Signum survived this mission so long as she bought enough time. Signum half wondered what the Commander would do if she flat-out refused the mission, if she threatened to just stand by and do nothing unless she got the support she needed to have a reasonable chance of victory. However, she recognized it as a petty, spiteful thought, and rose above the urge. Unlike the Commander, she did not value her value her life above the world. She understood her duty. The Angels must be stopped – at any cost.

"Understood." Signum said.

* * *

Signum flew into the vast cavernous space of the GeoFront. She took up position over the black pyramid of Central Dogma as the Angel floated down to meet her.

"So you are the one they have sent to stop me." the Angel said congenially. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Tabris. It means, _the Good of God_. And the Angel within you is... Kerub, if I'm not mistaken."

Signum kept a tight grip on her sword, refusing to lower her guard simply because of her foe's appearance.

"You understand our language?" Signum asked warily. "Then heed this warning, Angel Tabris: proceed no further."

Though Tabris continued to smile, a trace of sorrow entered his complexion.

"Alas, that is impossible." Tabris said. "As an Angel, it is fundamentally ingrained into my instincts to seek out Lilith, the Black Mother, so that I might gain a body of flesh akin to your own."

"Your body already looks human to me." Signum said.

"Do not be fooled by appearances, Lady Knight of Kerub." Tabris said, his tone gently chastising. "Though my body is superficially similar to the form of the Lilim, it lacks substance. Only by becoming one with Lilith may I clothe myself in living flesh."

"I will not allow you." Signum said.

"I don't think you are in any position to be making ultimatums." Tabris said. "Harnessing Kerub's power has made you more than a Lilim... but you are still less than an Angel."

Tabris raised one finger, and an invisible force struck Signum like a hammer blow to the gut. She was sent flying backwards, somersaulting head over heels, but quickly reasserted her flight spell and righted herself. Though the impact hurt even through her Barrier Jacket, she didn't allow any pain to show on her face; her expression was one of grim determination.

"Violet Lightning Flash!" Signum called.

Her sword Laevatein burst into brilliant crimson flames as she poured her magic into it. Tabris began moving, drifting closer to her new position, while regarding the bright fire.

"It is greatly ironic, is it not?" Tabris asked her. "The Lilim, who possess living flesh, desire the magic of Angels; while we Angels, who possess great magic, long for the physical forms of the Lilim. Perhaps it is in the nature of all living beings to want that which they do not possess."

Signum lunged at Tabris, her sword leveled in front of her. Tabris made a grasping motion with one hand, and a vice-like force clamped down on the blade. Signum jerked to a stop, unable to budge her weapon. She tried forcing it forwards, pulling it back, and wiggling it from side to side, but nothing could break the Angel's invisible grip.

"You are unusually eloquent for an Angel." Signum said, taking a brief break from her efforts.

"I have you Lilim to thank for that." Tabris said. "I was recovered by SEELE from the New Dead Sea before my awakening and given to Doctor Jail Scaglietti to experiment upon. Rather than lobotomizing me and converting me into one of the so-called Intelligent Devices, the fate which befell Kerub who is now one with you, he chose to immerse me in the blood of Lilith, the primordial soup from which Lilim life arose. Oh, it was agonizing, the rejection reaction that occurred between my magic, inherited from the White Mother, and the blood which was born of the Black Mother. But the experiment worked. I absorbed the forbidden gift granted to the Lilim — what you might call _knowledge_, _intelligence_, or _intellect_."

Tabris made a sharp twisting motion with his hand, and Laevatein's blade shattered. However, Signum was prepared for this. Laevatein, though it might look solid, was nothing more than a manifestation of her magical power. Once it had become clear that the blade was permanently stuck, she'd begun retracting all of the energy in Laevatein to the hilt. She'd been ready to break the blade herself, like a lizard dropping its tail to escape a trap. When Tabris shattered the sword, all that he was really breaking was the last faint remnants of the magic that Signum had withdrawn form the sword.. Once the blade was broken, the hilt was free; and Signum let the power flow back out again, instantly reforming her weapon and once more shrouding it in flames. Tabris clapped briefly in response to her maneuver. Signum's initial thought was that the Angel was mocking her; but when she looked at his face, his expression seemed oddly sincere.

"I admit, I excepted less of you; an unfair assessment which I now apologize for." Tabris said. "Did you by chance also know Doctor Jail Scaglietti? I thought I saw recognition in your eyes when I mentioned his name."

Signum ignored the Angel for the moment, focused on finding a way to seize the initiative now that she seemed to have surprised the Angel. Signum used one arm to point her sword towards Tabris, and extended the other in that direction.

"Panzer Geist!" Signum intoned.

A red magic circle inscribed itself in front of Signum. She launched herself at the Angel, the magic circle floating in front of her like a shield. Tabris extended a palm-out hand towards Signum, and the shield was pounded with terrible force; but it held. Signum's forward flight slowed, but did not stop. Tabris raised an eyebrow, then made a short, sharp, slashing motion with his other hand. Another invisible force struck Signum's shield – but this one was focused on a small, thin area. It sliced through the magic circle like a blade through butter, leaving Signum exposed; Tabris made an off-hand swatting motion, and the invisible energy he wielded plowed into her like a runaway train. Signum was blown all the way down to the floor of the GeofFront, and struck with such force that she made a crater. There was a moment of stillness, with the mighty Magical Girl sprawled on the ground like a broken doll; but then Signum seemed to pulls herself back together and climb out of the crater.

"Yes." Signum spat out no small quantity of blood, and possibly a couple of teeth, then clarified the meaning of her statement. "Yes, I knew Dr. Scaglietti... back at SEELE. They kept him locked up in _Der Riese_."

"Dr. Scaglietti released me from SEELE's control, on the condition that I release him as well." Tabris said. "It seems a foolish deal to me, as he is doomed to perish when I cause the Third Impact mere minutes from now. Then again, the lives of you Lilim are so much shorter than those of us Angels. Perhaps it makes sense for you treasure each precious moment of joy, no matter how fleeting. Freedom, I think, is an essential form of joy."

"Don't get ahead of yourself, Angel." Signum growled through bloody teeth. "If you think I can't last more than another couple of minutes, you've woefully underestimated your opponent."

"You have fought valiantly, Lady Knight of Kerub; I freely admit so." Tabris said. "Indeed, I am honored that my final battle could be against one as noble as you; I sense also the presence of my Mother, Adam, and shudder to imagine a battle between myself and the Lilim who has enslaved Her. But nobility and valiance can only take you so far; they will not, for instance, allow you to continue fighting when your ribs have been broken and the fragments have punctured your left lung. I am not so uncouth as to kill a defeated opponent, so feel free to do as you wish in the brief time you have remaining to you. Treasure each remaining moment of your life, for nothing else could ever be so precious."

Signum drew herself painfully to her feet and raised Laevatein. Flames rekindled on the surface of the blade, twice the size and brightness they had been before.

"You're wrong, Angel." Signum said. "There is something more precious to me than the remainder of my life. The lives of my friends. That's why, however little time I might have left, I'm going to devote it to protecting them. This fight isn't over, Tabris. I'll not be defeated until I'm dead – and if it comes to that, I'll do my damnedest to take you down with me."

"If that is truly your wish, Lady Knight of Kerub, then I will honor it." Tabris said.

Tabris held out one hand flat, palm-out, then closed his other hand into a fist and smacked it down. Signum, who had been keeping a careful eye on Tabris's hand movements, guessed at the nature of the oncoming attack and hurled herself to the side. Tabris's attack slammed into the ground where she'd been standing, crushing a portion of the ground as though something heavy had been dropped from a great height. But while Signum's dodge was successful, the movement caused a searing pain in her side; the Angel appeared to be correct in his assessment of her broken ribs. Signum pressed one hand against her side and tried to focus her magic; though she knew that being a Magical Girl granted her healing capabilities far in excess of a normal human, she had never really focused on developing that aspect of her abilities. She was at least able to deaden the pain, allowing her the concentration to rekindle her flight spell.

"Fire Dragon Flash!" Signum called.

Her flight spell sent her hurtling through the air towards Tabris, her sword blazing with fierce energy. Tabris held out one palm towards her, and Signum slammed into an invisible barrier. However, while her momentum was brought to a crushing stop, the magic that had gathered in Laevatein flew onwards, coalescing into a lance of power that shot directly towards the Angel's face.

"Clever." Tabris said.

He raised his other hand in front of his face, intercepting the lance just before it would have struck. The Angel was briefly obscured by an explosion; when the smoke and fire faded, Tabris was unharmed behind a shining blue Barrier. He then lowered his hand with a sharp, striking motion; and something slammed into Signum, sending her hurtling back towards the ground.

"Flying Dragon Flash!" Signum managed to shout through the pain.

Laevatein split apart into a bladed whip which wove through the air like a snake. Apparently unconcerned by the blades flying towards his neck Tabris brought his other hand back up to shield himself with his Barrier; however, the whip instead bent mid-flight and wrapped itself around the Angel's ankles before pulling taught. For the first time, Tabris seemed to be truly caught off guard; he was yanked down to earth in Signum's wake, striking the ground close to where she fell.

The moment she had recovered from her own impact with the dirt, Signum began pouring more of her magic into Laevatein. The whip coiled itself around Tabris and began to seethe with flame. However, Tabris had by this time regained his faculties. He drew himself back onto his feet even though the tight coils of Signum's Device prevented his knees from bending, like a rigid puppet being pulled to its feet; when he looked at Signum, he was no longer smiling and his expression had grown stern.

"You have fought well, Lady Knight of Kerub, but it is time for this to end." Tabris said.

He clenched his fist, and a blue aura appeared around his body. His Barrier slowly expanded out from his skin, pressing against the wrapped blades of Laevatein. The blades sizzled and smoked as the hot red magic pulsing through the Device struggled against the cold blue glow; then the Barrier expanded convulsively, shattering the constricting coils. The broken pieces of Laevatein dissolved into red sparks as they fell to the ground, and Tabris's Barrier stabilized around him.

"You may find this hard to believe, but I have no particular desire to take your life." Tabris said. "While it is my destiny to destroy all of humanity through the Third Impact, that is not out of any malice towards your race – that will merely be an unfortunate consequence of my attempt at union with Lilith. I certainly bear no ill will towards you in particular. In fact, I believe that I value your life more than your superiors, who have clearly abandoned you to die at my hands."

"You have a point, Angel, or do you just like hearing yourself talk?" Signum gasped out.

"Life is precious, in spite of – perhaps even because of – its ephemerality." Tabris said. "I am going to bring about the end of your life, but I will not do so prematurely. Since you are no longer any threat to me in your condition, I will allow you to live until the moment of Third Impact like the rest of your race. I encourage you to use this remaining time to come to peace with yourself – it would be unfortunate for a magnificent soul such as yourself to die with lingering regrets."

"You think me defeated?" Signum asked. "You think me harmless now? That I have no strength left? You think wrong, Angel."

Signum focused all her remaining strength on the broken hilt of Laevatein and began regenerating the weapon, using her magic to reconstruct the blade.

"Humans can be so irrational." Tabris said. "Dr. Scaglietti also seemed to believe, against all odds, that you would be able to defeat me. But the facts of the situation are indisputable: you cannot prevail against me. Only she who has swallowed Adam has the magical power to hope to match me, and she is a selfish soul who would rather die with the world than sacrifice herself for it. There is no dishonor in your defeat, Lady Knight of Kerub; you have already far surpassed my initial expectations. Concede and accept your loss with dignity."

"No dishonor?" Signum laughed harshly. "If I were willing to just idly stand aside and let you destroy the world, I would have spit in the Commander's face rather than come out here to face you. But it is precisely because I am honorable that I stand between you and Lilith; and so long as there is breath in my body, I will continue to oppose you."

"How intriguing." Tabris said. "I do not wish to bring death to a good person; yet it is precisely because you are a good person that you insist on fighting me until your death. If on the other hand you were willing to accept my mercy, you would be unworthy of receiving it. In other words, a paradox. The only kind of person who would sacrifice their life opposing me is the only kind of person who shouldn't have to."

"I shouldn't have to." Signum agreed. "But I do. And so I will. That is my final decision. Bogenform!"

Laevatein's form changed, shifting from a sword into a bow. A bolt of energy formed in it, with all of Signum's remaining magical power concentrated in a single blazing point at the tip. Genuine surprise showed on Tabris's face.

"Surely you don't mean to use magic of that strength at this range." Tabris said. "You're so close to my Barrier, the blast would–"

"Sturm Falken!" Signum yelled over him.

She let the arrow fly, and it exploded against the Angel's Barrier. A tremendous explosion expanded from the point of impact, enveloping Tabris and Signum both in an inferno of destructive magic that shook the foundations of the GeoFront. The site of their battle was engulfed in a thick cloud of burning cinders.

When the dust cleared, only Tabris remained standing.

"Such folly." Tabris muttered to himself. "And yet... how strangely noble. Truly the Lilim are a race of contradictions."

Tabris regarded Signum. She lay sprawled on the ground, still breathing but clearly in too much pain to do anything else. Most of her Barrier Jacket had been blown away, and her exposed skin was badly burned. Tabris gave her a deep, graceful bow of respect. Then he turned his gaze to the black pyramid of Central Dogma. No sooner had he laid eyes on it than a large portion was plowed inwards, as though punched by a gigantic invisible fist. Tabris's feet left the ground and he began floating towards the hole.

* * *

Nanoha pounded on the door to Fate's room. The Angel alarm continued to sound in the background, but she ignored it. She had faith in Signum, Shamal, and Vita to handle the Angel. Her primary concern at the moment was Fate. Ever since the fight against Arael, her friend had shut herself off from everybody. Nanoha hadn't understood why at first; but now, having talked to Dr. Akagi, she had a pretty good idea. Fate must have found out that she wasn't really Alicia, but a clone of Precia's original daughter. All this time, despite all the verbal and physical abuse she had suffered from Precia, Fate had never stopped believing that her mother loved her. The trauma of finding out that the Commander had never viewed her as anything but a whipping-girl replacement for her real, deceased daughter must have been absolutely devastating. Now she was afraid that Fate had fallen into a spiral of depression that she might never break out of. Nanoha was determined to help her, no matter what it took.

"Fate!" Nanoha shouted. "Open the door!"

There was no response from within the room.

"Fate," Nanoha said in her sternest voice, "if you don't answer me, I'm going to blast the door down."

Another moment of silence passed, then Nanoha raised Raising Heart.

"Divine Shooter!" Nanoha said, loudly and clearly.

A ball of shimmering pink energy appeared in front of her. Before she could launch it, however, there was a thump from the other side of the door; then Fate spoke to her in a soft, empty voice.

"Leave me alone." Fate said.

"Not a chance." Nanoha said.

"Why do you even care?" Fate asked.

"How can you ask that?" Nanoha asked. "It's because I'm your friend."

"I'm not really Alicia." Fate said. "I'm nobody."

"That doesn't matter to me." Nanoha insisted.

"How can it not matter!" Fate cried. "My whole life has been a lie. All my memories, everything I thought I knew, is just a fantasy Mother put inside my head. I'm not a real person – just a doll for Mother to play with. It's all lies, all meaningless!"

"Fate!" Nanoha shouted. "When we kissed after fighting Zeruel, I wasn't kissing Alicia – I was kissing _you_."

There was a long pause.

"I don't know what kind of person Alicia was," Nanoha continued, "but I know _you_, Fate. I know you're one of the most wonderful people I've ever met. You're smart, and kind, and gentle, and beautiful. You're the girl I fell in love with. And nothing will ever change that."

The door to Fate's room slowly slid open, and Fate stepped out. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her face was stained by tears.

"You still love me?" Fate asked. "Even though I'm not real?"

"You are real." Nanoha told her. "And I'll always love you."

She brushed Fate's bangs out of her eyes and planted a soft kiss on the girl's cheek, then took both of Fate's hands into her own.

"Don't you think that's worth fighting for?" Nanoha asked.

"Yes." Fate said, pulling one hand free to wipe the tears from her eyes. "Yes, I do."

"Then let's do it." Nanoha said.

The two girls heard footsteps approaching from down the hall and turned to see who it was. Lindy staggered towards them, out of breath from running all the way from the briefing room.

"Nanoha! Fate!" Lindy called out. "The Angel's broken past the defenses at Central Dogma. You need to head down to Terminal Dogma right away if you're going to intercept it. I'll show you to the nearest access shaft."

"C'mon, Fate." Nanoha said. "It's time to finish things."

* * *

Tabris descended.

NERV security meant nothing to him. Door after door of thick armor plating closed in the shaft below him, and he plowed through them all without slowing. For kilometer after kilometer, he followed the shaft down towards Terminal Dogma, the hidden heart of NERV. He could hear the Black Mother's heartbeat, every particle of his being aching to respond to the siren song of Her flesh.

"Soon." he said, apparently to himself.

The shaft finally ended, opening up into a cavern. Long ago, it had been filled with a lake of the blood of Lilith, the primordial soup from which all Lilim life had arisen. However, once SEELE had risen to power, they had drained all of the precious liquid for their own use. All that remained now was a massive salt flat. Tabris only glanced at it for a few moments before directing his attention towards one of the cavern's sides. Set into the stone wall was a massive door of burnished steel, engraved with the Sefirot of the Tree of Life. Written in large capital letters above and below the design were the words, "GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN, ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD".

"The time is now." Tabris said. "I, last of the Angels, have come to stand before Heaven's Door, and it will at last be opened."

He spread his arms, and a tremendous force ripped apart the massive doors. Beyond them, Lilith lay on Her cross, awaiting his embrace. Tabris floated forwards to be joined with Her.

* * *

The moment Tabris tore open the doors of Terminal Dogma, alarms went off in SEELE. Most of the systems in NERV were governed by the MAGI. Using the master override code Dr. Akagi had given her, Precia had ordered the Magi not to pass on any notification of the Angel attack to SEELE. Terminal Dogma, however, was the shrine of the Black Mother; the holiest of all places to SEELE. It had countless redundant security systems, many predating the invention of the MAGI. There was no way to hide a breach of the chamber from the Council. As soon as Tabris penetrated the defenses, they were alerted.

"How is it that the final Angel has already penetrated Terminal Dogma?" SEELE 06 asked. "It's much too soon! Things are moving forwards too quickly!"

"Security is reporting that Tabris has disappeared from its containment area." SEELE 05 said. "Dr. Scaglietti is missing as well. Two of our most precious possessions — gone! And the surveillance system was apparently hacked — we don't even know how long they've been missing."

"Treason!" SEELE 02 screamed. "First Testarossa, and now Scaglietti! There is no one we can trust! Nothing but worthless scum! When the power of Adonai is ours, the first thing we should do is purge the unworthy from this world with the holy flames of damnation!"

"Yes." SEELE 06 agreed. "Only we have earned the right to rule this world. Let everyone else be consumed!"

"Why didn't we learn of the final Angel's attack sooner?" SEELE 06 continued, ignoring the other Council members' rants. "The MAGI should have informed us the moment they detected the Angel!"

"That conniving bitch Precia!" SEELE 07 said. "She subverted the MAGI!"

"The sheer gall of her!" SEELE 02 said. "Everything that is ours, she takes! Lilith! Adam! The MAGI! And she would seek to claim even the power of Adonai! She has no right!"

"Calm down!" Lorenz Keel roared.

The other monoliths feel silent, humbled by Chairman Keel's overwhelming force of personality.

"Nothing has changed." Keel said. "We always intended for Tabris to attack NERV. Everything is still proceeding according to our designs. Dr. Scaglietti's little rebellion has simply accelerated our timetable. Fortunately, I had the foresight to keep the _Asura_ in geosynchronous orbit over NERV so that the Arc-En-Ciel could be fired at any time. The moment the alarms sounded, I activated the firing sequence. In a few seconds, the thunder of God will fall from the heavens. The Angel and the Commander will both be destroyed, and our victory will be complete. The Angel has not the time to trigger Third Impact; nor the Commander the time to carry out any further action against us. Nothing can stop us now."

* * *

Vita and Shamal hadn't reported to the briefing room because the Commander had given them a special assignment. With her implied threats against Hayate and Clyde, they had no option other than to obey. And so, while the Angel Tabris was forcing his way into Terminal Dogma, Vita and Shamal weren't in the GeoFront. They had portalled far away, to a desolate area where the collateral damage from their mission would be minimized. The two Magical Girls had used powerful binding spells to anchor themselves to the ground. Once they were certain they were secure, Shamal touched Klarer Wind and opened a portal to outer space.

It appeared in the air above them, a circular window leading outside the atmosphere. A ferocious wind immediately kicked up as air began rushing through the portal into vacuum. However, Vita stood firm amidst the tornado. Her binding spells anchoring her against the powerful suction that threatened to rip her from the ground, she looked upwards into the portal. It stood out clearly against the sky, a black disc filled with stars. But there was something else visible amongst the darkness, something closer than the distant lights. It was a mechanical satellite, crackling with arcane energies. Orbital Weapons Platform _Asura_, in the process of charging the Arc-En-Ciel. If the energy buildup was allowed to continue, it would unleash an energy blast that would destroy the GeoFront and kill everyone in NERV.

When Precia had first ordered Vita and Shamal to disable the Arc-En-Ciel, they'd been hesitant. Having been raised and trained by the organization, they still retained feelings of loyalty towards it. Despite what the Commander had told them about SEELE's plan to use the final Angel's attack as an excuse to destroy NERV and steal the Progenitors, they hadn't fully believed her. It was difficult to accept the concept that the group to which they had once wholeheartedly pledged their loyalty was evil; had been responsible for all the death that occurred during Second Impact, and now planned to massacre once again. But seeing the halo of unearthly energy building around the _Asura_ as it charged the Arc-En-Ciel removed all doubt: SEELE really was planning to blow up NERV, and all the people of Tokyo-3 with it. The girls' reservations about their mission vanished. It wasn't just about Hayate and Clyde anymore; it was about saving all of their friends.

"Swallow Flier!" Vita yelled over the roar of the wind.

A sphere of blazing orange energy appeared in front of her. She swung her hammer Graf Eisen, striking the ball of magic and sending it rocketing forwards. It sailed through the portal and into space, following a trajectory that would take it to the _Asura_. Vita had aimed well; the projectile's course unerringly led it to strike the side of the satellite. The sphere of densely-packed offensive magic exploded on impact, ripping a hole in the side of the _Asura_. The weapons platform rocked in its orbit, and a spray of shattered and molten fragments of metal spilled out from it and spread out into space. The dreadful aura of power that had been building around the satellite faded as the critically-damaged Arc-En-Ciel shut down. Shamal regarded it a moment longer, to ensure that the firing sequence really had been aborted, then shut down the portal.

"That takes care of that." Vita said with dark satisfaction.

"Come on." Shamal said. "We should go back to NERV and see what's happening with the Angel."

Shamal touched her ring, but nothing happened.

"Shamal?" Vita asked.

"...I can't open a portal in headquarters." Shamal said, with no small measure of alarm. "There's some kind of barrier... I think the Angel is blocking me somehow!"

"It can do that?" Vita said. "Just how powerful is the final Angel?"

Shamal touched Klarer Wind again, and this time a portal appeared in the air in front of the girls.

"I can take us to the edge of the GeoFront." Shamal said. "We'll have to fly the rest of the way."

"Then we better get going." Vita said.

* * *

Tabris paused for a moment, tilting his head to the side as though listening to a distant sound. Then he smiled and shook his head ruefully.

"Teleportation magic." he said. "How unconventional. But my Barrier is more than a simple shield; it is a sacred space that none may enter without my blessing. It doesn't matter whether you travel by foot or flight or portal; you will not be able to reach me in time."

Tabris turned his head back towards the white giant that towered over him, dominating Terminal Dogma with Her presence: Lilith, the Black Mother. Crucified on a giant cross and impaled with countless blood-sucking tubes, there was nothing She could do to avoid Tabris as he drifted through the air towards Her.

"And now, all things shall return to the dust from whence they came." Tabris said. "Become as one with me, mother of the Lilim! Now is the Third Impact!"

Tabris thrust his right arm forwards, into Lilith's body. It sank up to the elbow into the soft, yielding white flesh. The surface of Lilith's body began to churn and bubble where it contacted Tabris, the first stage of the cataclysmic rejection reaction that would destroy all life on the planet.

"Stop!"

They descended from above like twin angels, wreathed in blazing auras of pink and yellow: Nanoha and Fate, the final defenders of NERV.

"Arc Saber!" Fate shouted.

She swung Bardiche and sent a circular blade of crackling energy hurtling through the air. It passed through the space between Tabris and Lilith, neatly severing the Angel's arm just below the elbow. The amputated portion was immediately ejected from Lilith's body, the white flesh spitting it out like poison, and the limb disintegrated into blue sparks as it fell to the room's floor, far below. However, the Angel didn't so much as flinch in response to the attack; he only turned his head to glance at the newly arrived Magical Girls.

"Well, you're rather late, aren't you?" Tabris said dryly. "You cut it quite close there, Lady Knight of Abaddon and Lady Knight of Baraqiel."

"Get away from Her!" Nanoha shouted. "Divine Shooter!"

She sent a salvo of energy blasts at Tabris. However, now that the Angel had been alerted to their presence, his Barrier was raised, and Nanoha's attacks exploded harmlessly against it.

"Now that you're here, allow me to introduce myself properly." the Angel said. "My name is Tabris. It means, _the Good of God_."

"You can speak." Fate said in surprise. "Arael spoke mentally to me when its mind was joined with mine, and Leliel to Nanoha under similar conditions, but I've never known an Angel to be capable of physical speech."

"I have an unusual intellect, for an Angel." Tabris said agreeably.

He took a few moments to examine the stump of his severed arm, which still smoked and trembled from its brief contact with the incompatible flesh of the Black Mother.

"It is actually rather unfortunate." the Angel said. "Because I possess a mind akin to that of you Lilim, I know that a successful fusion with Lilith is impossible to achieve. The rejection reaction between my magic and Her flesh will destroy me, along with all Lilim life on this planet. And yet, my Angel instincts compel me to try regardless. Must it be my destiny to bring final destruction to the human race?"

"If you know it's wrong, just don't do it!" Nanoha said.

"Wrong?" Tabris asked. "That's a funny thing to say. We Angels are beings of pure instinct. We can do no wrong, for we cannot understand what it is."

"Then we'll have to stop you!" Fate said. "Plasma Lancer!"

"Axel Shooter!" Nanoha added.

A barrage of yellow and pink energy projectiles bore down on the floating Angel. Tabris lazily waved one hand in the general direction of the girls, and their attacks froze mid-air. The spheres of magic power then detonated in a series of brightly colored but entirely harmless explosions. Tabris didn't even seem to be giving the Magical Girls his full attention, appearing more concerned with his thoughts.

"Angels have no concept of good or evil... but perhaps that is no longer true for me, now that I have tasted the Forbidden Fruit of Knowledge. Out of all the Angels, I have been granted a unique power... the power to choose. Is that the Doctor's true gift to me?"

"Bardiche – Zanber Form!" Fate yelled. "Riot Blade!"

Fate's Device shifted shape, and its crescent blade of crackling magic energy lengthened into a massive broadsword. Fate flew at Tabris, swinging Bardiche as she did so. The brilliant yellow blade sent a shower of sparks exploding from Tabris's blue Barrier, then began to penetrate. Fate forced the blade down, opening a visible fissure in the magic circle, which Nanoha then targeted with Raising Heart.

"Divine Buster!" Nanoha called.

She sent a massive beam of pink energy roaring towards the weak point in the Angel's Barrier. Tabris only shook his head, and his Barrier abruptly flashed and was whole once more. Fate's Riot Blade was snapped in half as torn edges of the Barrier sealed themselves around it; then the shockwave of Nanoha's magic exploding futilely against the Angel's defenses sent her flying backwards.

"Tell me something, Lady Knights of Abaddon and Baraqiel... or rather, Nanoha and Fate. Do you believe in free will?"

Nanoha and Fate took a moment to recompose themselves. Hovering side-by-side, Nanoha placed her right hand into Fate's left. Intertwining their fingers, the girls used their free hands to point their Devices at Tabris and began calling on their deepest reserves of magical energy. It took them some time to build up the power necessary for their pending attacks, but Tabris made no move to interrupt them, merely watching as an intense aura of power built around the girls.

"Trident Smasher!" Fate yelled.

"Starlight Breaker!" Nanoha exclaimed.

Three blazing beams of yellow energy shot out of Bardiche and were joined by an enormous burst of pink magic of Raising Heart. The four streams of power wrapped around each other, intertwining into a helix, and struck the Angel's Barrier simultaneously. Brilliant light illuminated Terminal Dogma as though a miniature sun had kindled before the Black Mother, the colossal outpouring of energy from the Magical Girls raging against the Angel's Barrier. However, though the blue magic circle between the Angel and the devastating offensive magic directed at him shuddered and shed cascades of blue sparks, it did not break. Tabris showed no sign of strain at maintaining his defense against even the maximum amount of power the girls could bring to bear at him. In fact, he almost seemed to relax as the beams of magic hammered on his Barrier.

"I've never believed in free will before." Tabris continued calmly. "But now... I rather think I do. And for that, I am truly grateful. My thanks to the Doctor... and to you."

At that moment, his Barrier dropped. It did not shatter into a constellation of glowing sparks, as magic defenses did when they were overwhelmed, but simply vanished. And, in that brief moment, Nanoha thought she saw the Angel close his eyes and smile. Then the four beams of magical power the girls had fired, no longer facing any obstruction, converged and slammed into him. The incredible energy of their fierce attacks vaporized him in an instant, leaving only a small scattering of blue sparks to mark his passage.


	36. There Will Be No Other End Of The World

**Chapter 36: There Will Be No Other End Of The World**

"Tabris has been destroyed." Lorenz Keel said. "The time for us to act is now."

"Yes!" SEELE 03 said exultantly. "For far too long Testarossa has avoided the consequences of her insolent defiance. Now she will feel the full extent of our fury!"

"If only we could use the Arc-En-Ciel." Seele 05 said. "She must pay for daring to break our heavenly instrument."

"What is the extent of the damage to Weapons Platform _Asura_?" Keel asked.

"Too soon to tell." SEELE 04 said. "While there is significant structural damage to the satellite, the MAGI is still alive and the Intelligent Device bonded to it is still intact. The MAGI is attempting to reboot the fire control system; we must wait and see if it is successful."

"Damn her, turning the girls we so generously provided against us." SEELE 02 said.

"There is nothing to be concerned about." Keel said. "After all, we have our own Magical Girls at our disposal. Even if the Arc-En-Ciel is temporarily out of commission, we have more than enough magical firepower at our disposal to overcome the forces loyal to the Commander and raze NERV."

"Yes." SEELE 07 said. "Come on, Chairman. Let us finally look upon the lovely ladies who will be that bitch Precia's doom."

"Of course." Keel said.

He pressed one of the buttons on the armrest of his chair, sending an instruction to the holographic display system. An image appeared in space between the black monoliths representing the members of the Council: seven young women standing in a line. They were all dressed the same, in white bodysuits evocative of straightjackets; only the general shape of their bodies showed that they were female, as not a single square inch of skin was visible anywhere on their bodies. Their heads were entirely covered by gleaming metal helmets. Unusually, the helmets lacked eye slots or any other type of hole to see through. Their fronts were a single solid piece of metal, each engraved with a circle containing a unique sigil.

The circle on the first girl's helmet contained a point-down triangle. The lines of the sides extended beyond the point before crossing the sides of a V and curling upwards. Two other lines extended inwards from the other corners of the triangle, crossing each other within the triangle's interior and continuing a short distance past its sides. She bore the Sigil of Lucifer.

The circle on the second girl's helmet also contained a point-down triangle, but smaller, and with Hebrew characters written within. It was encircled by the serpent ouroboros, a snake devouring its own tail. She bore the Sigil of Leviathan.

The circle on the third girl's helmet contained an inverted pentagram. Drawn within the six sections were the features of a goat: the upper two segments containing the horns, the side segments containing the ears, the bottom segment containing the beard, and the central segment containing the face. She bore the Sigil of Satan.

The circle on the fourth girl's helmet was the simplest of the group, containing only a simple series of disconnected lines that might be taken for random typographic characters: an L, a wavy line, a second L, a rightwards-opening angle bracket, and a rightwards opening quotation mark. However, taken together, they signified the name of the Angel which had been bound within her to serve as her Intelligent Device. She bore the Sigil of Belphegor.

The circle on the fifth girl's helmet was a complicated series of lines and circles. The core of the design was an upwards-pointing arrow with a cross on the bottom, struck through by a diagonal line connecting to the other portions of the symbol. To the left the design formed a shape like a fishhook, topped by three lines branching off and ending in circles; to the right it made a series of three outward-facing curves, like a B with one too many bumps. She bore the Sigil of Mammon.

The circle on the sixth girl's helmet contained a symmetrical pattern. From a plus-shaped center, there extended two diagonally-slanted crosses above and two lines leading to circles below. The design was vaguely evocative of the antennae and forelegs of a fly. She bore the Sigil of Beelzebub.

The circle on the seventh girl's helmet was the most complex. A vertical line divided the circle, crosses a set of bars at the center. On the right side was an arc with many circles and and a cross branching off. On the left, by contrast, there was only a squiggly line ending in an arrow, perhaps symbolizing the curvy pointed tail of a devil. She bore the Sigil of Asmodeus.

"These are the Mass-Production Magical Girls." Keel said. "Let me assure you that they have none of the troubling flaws that lead our original candidates to change their loyalty to the Commander. They have undergone intensive conditioning aimed at destroying their personalities and removing their ability to feel emotion, and the blood of Lilith was subsequently used to indoctrinate them with an unshakeable loyalty to our cause. There is no room in their minds for the slightest hesitation, the slightest doubt, or the slightest disobedience. They exist only as instruments to carry out our will. These are the tools with which we will guide to world to a bright and shining future! These are our Evangels!"

"Impressive." SEELE 06 said. "But I cannot help but notice that only seven of the original eleven planned Mass-Production Magical Girls could be completed in time. I do not doubt their ability to triumph over the NERV Magical Girls, but will this incomplete set be capable of defeating that woman when she has bonded with the White Mother?"

"Your concern is unwarranted." Keel said. "Seven is enough to utilize the Sefirot Formation. United, their power will be enough to strike down the Commander and tear Adam from her breast."

Keel grinned savagely. His old, decrepit body, kept alive only by his numerous mechanical implants, would be rejuvenated by Adonai's magic, and he and his fellow Council members would take their rightful places as gods of the new world."

"Now is the end of the world — and the beginning of the new century gospel."

The mood in the NERV command center was tense. Maya, Makoto, and Shigeru hunched over their consoles while Precia and Fuyutsuki observed them from above.

"Can you confirm that the final Angel has been destroyed?" Precia demanded.

"Affirmative, ma'am." Makoto said. "All three MAGI are in agreement: the target has gone silent."

"Then the curtain has risen on the final act." Precia said. "Put me on the intercom. I want everyone in the GeoFront to hear this message."

She waited a few moments for the bridge bunnies to carry out her instruction, then began speaking in a calm, authoritative voice.

"Attention, all personnel." Precia said. "This is Commander Precia Testarossa. It is with great pride that I now report to you that the final Angel has been defeated. NERV has completed its mission to defend humanity from the threat of the Angels." She paused, predicting that there would be cheering at this statement, and gave it a moment or two to die down before she resumed speaking. "I wish I could tell you that this was the end of the danger, and of your duty. Unfortunately, we are already facing an alarming new threat. SEELE, the organization which first founded NERV, has betrayed us. Just moments ago, they attempted to attack the GeoFront with the Arc-En-Ciel; an attack which, had it been successful, would have killed every man, woman, and child within the facility. Though this sneak attack was thwarted by our stalwart Magical Girl defenders, we have every reason to believe that SEELE is prepared to follow up this violent overture with a full-scale attack on the GeoFront using their own personal army of Magical Girls. The Council's goal is to gain unlimited magical power for themselves, in order to become god-like tyrants who will rule the world with an iron fist. It is our duty, as defenders of humanity, to prevent this from coming to pass. In order to gain the power to oppose SEELE, I will carry out the Forbidden Union and claim the power of Adonai."

Precia turned to Fuyutsuki.

"I am going to my office to initiate the final stage." Precia said. "You have command, Vice-Commander."

Then, without waiting for an acknowledgment, she strode out of the command center.

Fuyutsuki sighed and rubbed his temples. After all their years of planning, their moment of triumph had finally arrived, but he felt no sense of victory. Indeed, he found himself wondering how many of the innocents sheltering in NERV would die as collateral damage when the Adonai-empowered Commander took on the Mass-Production Magical Girls. Once, he might have believed that Precia would try to avoid civilian casualties; but years of seeing her run NERV had stripped him of that notion.

"Give it to us straight, VC." Shigeru said. "We aren't going to survive this, are we?"

Fuyutsuki turned to look at the cynical lieutenant. Shigeru was known for his bleak outlook; but in this case, he was probably right, and Fuyutsuki didn't see any reason to hide it from the bridge staff.

"The power of Adonai will definitely allow the Commander to defeat SEELE's attack." Fuyutsuki said. "But before then... it is likely we will suffer high casualties during the initial assault."

"If this is... the end," Maya said hesitantly, "then I'd like to go see Ritsuko. I want to be by her side... no matter what happens."

Fuyutsuki nodded.

"The three of you have all served NERV faithfully." he said. "I cannot ask more of you than you've already given. Therefore, I hereby absolve you of all your duties. Go. Leave here. Get out of the GeoFront, if you can. And whatever happens, in the new world to come... best of luck to you."

The Magical Girls of NERV assembled in the shadow of the black pyramid of Central Dogma. Of the girls, Shamal and Vita were in the best condition, having just returned from their mission to disable the Arc-En-Ciel; a task that they had accomplished with little effort. Nanoha and Fate, fresh from their fight with the Angel Tabris, had expended a good deal more of their reserves of magical power. In the worst condition, however, was Signum. Not only was she exhausted, but she had been badly injured fighting as well and could barely stand. Shamal was aiding her as best she could, transferring magic energy from Klarer Wind to Laevatein so that Signum could use it to heal her injuries.

"Are we really going to have to fight other Magical Girls?" Nanoha asked.

"We have no choice." Signum said. "Over these months we have fought together, you have gained my friendship; but back when I worked for SEELE, my loyalty to them was absolute. I am certain that for this mission of the utmost importance, they will send completely loyal Magical Girls who are prepared to kill us without hesitation."

"You're in no condition to fight at all." Shamal said. "With your injuries..."

"I can still fight." Signum said. "Now that you've recharged my magic, the worst of my injuries are already healing."

"Even so... this level of injury isn't something you can recover from so quickly." Fate said. "I know from my own experience, when I was hurt by Sachiel and Ramiel, that you must still be in a great deal of pain."

"I will fight because I must." Signum said. "The lives of everyone important to me are in danger. Don't tell me not to try to protect them."

"I understand." Vita said. "But don't die, okay? If you do, I'll never forgive you."

The girls looked up to the roof of the GeoFront, at the hanging buildings of Tokyo-3. Normally they shone like a constellation of lights in the domed sky. Now, however, they were dark and ominous — they had been evacuated in preparation of SEELE's attack, since the enemy would surely break through the ceiling. The remaining population, those too essential to NERV's operation to have left sooner or simply too stubborn to have been driven off by even a year of Angel attacks, were now taking shelter in bunkers built deep into the earth.

Somewhere above the dark, enclosed sky, enemies were coming from them. And the only hope of the people in the shelters was for the Magical Girls to meet them in battle. So the girls knew it would be useless to try to talk Signum into sitting out the fight. It had already been decided — that this would be where they'd make their final stand.

Sitting in the darkness of her office, Precia initiated the final steps of her plan. Swiftly and without error, she entered the sequence of codes that would instruct the MAGI to activate the LONGINUS system. Soon, machinery in Terminal Dogma would spring to life and rend the flesh of the Black Mother, reducing Her back down to embryonic form. The old men had wanted Lilith to recover as much as possible for their Third Impact, so that the Adonai formed by the Forbidden Union would be as large and powerful as possible. However, since Precia was planning to carry out the Forbidden Union within her own body, it would suit her best if Lilith was smaller and more easily controlled. She must be weakened before She could be consumed.

The MAGI rejected her command.

Precia froze for a moment, as if in disbelief that anything in world would dare defy her will. Then she coldly and rationally analyzed the situation and came to the only possible conclusion: Dr. Akagi had betrayed her. The doctor had pretended to turn over all of the master override codes for the MAGI, but had actually kept in reserve some backdoor with which she had now locked Precia out of the system.

The reasons for her betrayal were irrelevant. Precia could always extract them later, as slowly and painfully as she wished. What was important now was that, having identified the problem, she was able to come up with a solution. Dr. Akagi must be stopped from doing any further sabotage; nothing could impede her long-awaited Forbidden Union.

Precia reached inwards within herself, to Adam who lay comatose within her flesh, and pure magic flooded her veins.

Fuyutsuki sat alone in the command center, having given the order for all other staff to evacuate. The room was eerily dark with the main holographic display shut down, and unusually silent as well — having grown tired of the constant alarms, he'd simply shut them all off. There was no point to them anymore; it was clear that the end had come for NERV. Fuyutsuki knew that the end might have come for him as well, but wasn't as afraid as he'd thought he'd be. For the first time in many years, he was at peace with himself. To hell with doing the smart thing; he was finally going to do the right thing.

Now, as he came to terms with the fact that he would quite probably die in the next few minutes, he found his mind wandering. He drifted through old memories, trying to trace the course of events that had led him here. Was there anything he could have done to avert this outcome, or had it always been inevitable that he would end up here. He fixated on one memory in particular — his first meeting with Precia as the newly-appointed Vice-Commander of NERV, when he had decided to become her ally in opposing SEELE. It had all seemed so clear at the time...

"_Thank you for recommending me for the Vice Commander position." Fuyutsuki said. "It honors me to have your trust."_

"_I must confess that my motives for nominating you are not pure." Precia said._

"_What do you mean?" Fuyutsuki asked._

"_What is your opinion on the Human Instrumentality Project?" Precia asked back._

"_I believe it is a noble endeavor." Fuyutsuki replied. "Granting everyone the power of magic will revolutionize the world. We'll bring about the next stage of human evolution."_

"_A splendid answer, Professor." Precia said. "Now tell me what you really feel."_

"_Commander?" Fuyutsuki asked._

"_You may speak freely here." Precia assured him. "I have disabled the Council's monitoring devices."_

"_Human Instrumentality sounds good in theory, but... I have to wonder if that's what SEELE is really planning." Fuyutsuki confessed. "I have never known the Council to act altruistically. They never surrender to others what they can keep to themselves. As much as I want to support the project wholeheartedly, I can't help but wonder if we're just pawns to the Council — to be strung along with empty promises and hollow rhetoric, then sacrificed when we're no longer necessary. Like the Harlaown Expedition."_

"_A valid concern — one which I have shared for a while." Precia said. "Since my work with Dr. Scaglietti on Project Fate, in fact."_

_Fuyutsuki couldn't help but grimace at the mention. It was becoming clear that the project had been a failure; Precia was unable to accept the clone as her daughter. Though it had Alicia's appearance and memories, there were slight differences in its behavior; and Precia grew to resent it more and more each time it disappointed her. It was starting to bring out a truly ugly side of Precia, a side of her that Fuyutsuki had never seen when she was his student._

"_The Council cannot stand anyone having more power than them." Precia continued. "Look at their treatment of Dr. Scaglietti — they know he possesses an intellect greater than theirs, so they keep him locked up underneath a mountain where he can pose no threat to them. Do you really think that SEELE plans to hand out free magical powers to all of humanity out of the goodness of their hearts? Ridiculous. No, those greedy old men will hoard the power of Adonai for themselves, and use it to solidify their position as tyrants. Already they control the world from behind the scenes using their puppets in the UN — imagine what they will do once they command the power of Adonai."_

"_They will be gods — and we, their slaves." Fuyutsuki said._

"_Precisely." Precia said. "And having foreseen this inevitable outcome, it is now our moral obligation to oppose their Instrumentality, is it not?"_

"_That's why you became Commander of NERV." he said. "To gain access to Lilith."_

"_Full marks, Professor." Precia said._

"_I understand." Fuyutsuki said. "Lilith is irreplaceable to them. If we kill Her, there will be no way for them to carry out Instrumentality. They'll execute us in retribution, of course, but the world will be saved."_

"_Oh dear, Fuyutsuki; I think I may have to lower your grade." Precia said. "If that was my plan, I would have done it already. The fact that I invited you here to appoint you Vice-Commander should have made you realize I had a better idea. Martyrdom does not suit me, Fuyutsuki; I would have us not merely foil the old men's plot, but survive and benefit from our victory."_

"_What is your plan, then?" Fuyutsuki asked._

"_I will carry out the Forbidden Union within my own body." Precia said. "I will deny them their Adonai by myself _becoming_ Adonai. Then, with the infinite knowledge of the Black Mother and infinite power of the White Mother, I will finally be able to do it... to truly resurrect Alicia."_

Fuyutsuki reverie was interrupted when Precia burst through the door of the command center, a nimbus of purple lightning crackling around her. Fuyutsuki calmly stood up from his chair and walked to face her.

"Hello, Professor." Precia said casually, as though everything were still normal. "It seems Dr. Akagi is more resourceful than I thought; the conniving bitch has disabled the LONGINUS system. I have to destroy the MAGI system entirely to ensure she does not pull any more tricks. Not much of a loss, really; it has served its purpose."

"It's got to stop, Precia." Fuyutsuki said. "_You_ have got to stop."

Precia turned her cold gaze on him. Fuyutsuki could see a pinprick of the white light of Adam's magic shining in each of her pupils.

"You too intend to turn against me?" Precia asked.

"I should have stopped you long ago." Fuyutsuki said. "I could see you plunging headlong into madness, and yet I followed you. Out of pity, for the loss of your daughter... and out of respect for the person you once were."

"Have I really changed that much?" Precia asked idly.

"You were always my brightest and most ambitious student." Fuyutsuki said. "But you also had respect and compassion for others. When did that change, Precia? When did you go from loving your daughter so much you wanted to raise her from the dead to hating her so much that you created dozens clones in her image simply for the pleasure of killing them?"

"I destroyed them because they were defective." Precia said. "With the power of Adonai, I will be able to resurrect Alicia flawlessly.

"I wonder." Fuyutsuki said. "If you did truly resurrect Alicia, exactly as she was when she died, would you actually love her? Or would you find that a real, _flawed_ person can't possibly live up to the perfect Alicia in your idealized memories? Or perhaps that is what you are actually intending to create — a puppet in the form of an ideal daughter, who will always do and say the things you think she should, will always tell you what you want to hear..."

"You have no right to judge me." Precia said.

"I spent years telling myself that lie, but I've finally seen past it." Fuyutsuki said sadly. "I have every right to judge you. The Precia Testarossa of my memories is a woman who I would have followed to the end of the world. But you are no longer that woman. And I will follow you no longer."

"You would have died for me, once." Precia said, accusingly.

"You were worth dying for, once." Fuyutsuki said.

Precia lost her composure for a moment and a scowl crossed her face, giving Fuyutsuki a glimpse of the anger bubbling beneath her calm exterior.

"You are making a grave mistake." Precia said, menace seeping into her tone. "Have you never heard the saying, _Sic semper malefidelibus?_"

"The way I always heard it was, _Sic semper tyrannis_." Fuyutsuki said, knowing these words would be the death of him. "Et sic semper _tu_, Precia."

Precia's face slackened, the familiar mask slipping back into place.

"Then even your usefulness has reached its end." Precia said. "There is no place for you in the future I will create. Farewell, Professor."

Precia almost lazily swung one arm towards the old man who had once been her closest friend and confidant. A thick lash of purple energy that crackled like lightning unfurled from her hand and slammed into him. Precia expected him to scream, but Fuyutsuki merely closed his eyes and took the attack with what dignity he could muster. The force of the impact knocked Fuyutsuki through a guardrail, sending him tumbling to a lower terrace. He landed with both legs twisted unnaturally, clearly broken. Precia looked down at him, and there wasn't the slightest sign of regret in her eyes.

That was when the computer screens began flashing, and Precia remembered what she had been doing before the old fool had decided to stand in her way. Dr. Akagi apparently did have another card up her sleeve, but Precia had no intention of letting the traitor play it. She raised her arms and a white magic circle wrote itself on the ground underneath her. Hellish energies danced between Precia's outstretched fingertips, and she formed the magic into three lightning bolts that grounded themselves inside the MAGI's tanks.

The MAGI had no defenses. The energy Precia pumped into them boiled the blood of Lilith that saturated their tissues and blew them apart. The three boxy shells containing the MAGI exploded into clouds of blistering steam, red-hot shrapnel, and chunks of charred brain matter. However, in the instant before their blood was flash-vaporized by Precia's attack, thanks to the precious time Fuyutsuki had bought them, the MAGI had completed their final instruction.

Precia saw it flash briefly on the computer screens before they went dark forever:

_Executing Command... COMPLETE_

_All Lilith restraints disengaged_

In Terminal Dogma, Lilith stirred. The cruel spikes which had pierced Her flesh were retracting, drawing back into the cross upon which She had been crucified. The machinery which had constantly drawn the blood from Her veins as fast as She could generate it was also shutting down, the parasitic tubes retracting from Her back. Finally, the shackles which had held Her in place opened, and Lilith drew Herself off Her cross.

The Black Mother raised Her hands to Her head and began pulling on the metal mask which had been embedded over Her face. The massive metal plaque bearing the symbol of the Seven Eyes of God had been seared to Her skin, but She unhesitatingly tore it free regardless. After a moment, Her mutilated face healed itself, coalescing back in feminine humanoid features. For the first time in thousands of years, Lilith opened Her eyes, revealing Her red irises.

Though Her offspring regarded Her as a god, Lilith was like them an incomplete being. She possessed only flesh, not the magic of the White Progenitors. However, a fortunate accident had caused Her Seed of Life to land on this world, where a White Progenitor had already been seeded, allowing Her the opportunity to attain completion. She could feel Her counterpart, the White Mother Adam, very close and coming closer. Adam was already bonded to one of Lilith's own daughters; such a thing would be impossible if Adam were whole, but She had been reduced back to an embryonic state. While She was unconscious, it was possible for even a mere human to access Her power.

Lilith loved all her progeny, but Her desire for unification and completion was far greater. A normal Angel, once bonded to a Lilim, could never again be separated from its host. But Adam was no mere Angel; She was a Progenitor, a being of a higher order. A mere Lilim could never fully bond with Her; only with an equal and opposite Progenitor could She achieve an irreversible union. Lilith would rip Adam from the body of this foolish Lilim, and the Black and White Mothers would become a single perfect being — Adonai.

The ceiling of Terminal Dogma buckled under a magic blast and Precia descended amidst a shower of rubble, coming to hover in front of Lilith's exposed face. White light shone from her eyes and purple flame wreathed her body. With the power of Adam at her command, the magical energy she wielded far surpassed that of any other Magical Girl or any previous Angel. This human, this mere Lilim, burned with an intensity equal to that of Lilith Herself.

"Lilith!" Precia roared. "Now comes the time for the daughter to surpass the Mother! As I have done to Adam, so shall I do to You. I will reduce You to an embryo and consume You. Your body will become a part of my body, Your blood a part of my blood, and Your knowledge a part of my knowledge. I shall become Adonai! And there is no one in this world with the power to oppose me — not even you, Black Mother! _Now be destroyed!_"

Lilith swung one of Her massive arms to strike Precia out of the air. Precia launched seething bolts of power at Lilith's face. Lilith's fist struck Precia's barrier, Precia's magic struck Lilith's skin, and Terminal Dogma was obliterated as the two titanic powers collided.

Ritsuko slumped back in her chair as the computer terminal went dark.

"That's it." she said. "The MAGI are dead. There's nothing more I can do."

"Did you execute the program in time?" Maya asked.

"I finished releasing Lilith's restraints." Ritsuko said. "That should make it a bit harder for Precia to defeat and absorb Her. I wish I could do more, but..."

"You did all you could." Maya assured her.

A distant rumbling began in the depths of NERV, growing more intense with each passing second; Precia had descended to claim Lilith by force, and the liberated Black Progenitor had engaged her in battle. Dr. Akagi had no idea who would emerge victorious in the contest between two such terrible powers, but she was certain that she didn't want to be anywhere in the vicinity of the fight when it took place.

"I think we should get out of here." Ritsuko said. "NERV might not last much longer."

Maya nodded in agreement.

"Time to run." she said.

The women fled the room, heading for the nearest exit to the surface as the trembling of the floor below escalated into an earthquake.

Seven human figures floated in the sky above Tokyo-3, held aloft by auras of magic. The Mass-Production Magical Girls, acting in unison as though they were all cogs in a single machine, assembled into a formation. Six of them formed a hexagram: Evangel Lucifer took the topmost point, then clockwise around the perimeter came Evangel Beelzebub, Evangel Satan, Evangel Asmodeus, Evangel Belphegor, and Evangel Leviathan. Finally, Evangel Mammon took position in the center of the wheel.

"Sefira Keter." Evangel Lucifer intoned.

As she spoke, the lines engraved in her metal helmet glowed red with her magic. The energy then expanded around her, inscribing a large version of the Sigil of Lucifer in the air. Each of the other Mass-Production Magical Girls followed suit.

"Sefira Chokhmah." said Evangel Beelzebub.

"Sefira Chesed." said Evangel Satan.

"Sefira Tif'eret." said Evangel Asmodeus.

"Sefira Gevurah." said Evangel Belphegor.

"Sefira Binah." said Evangel Leviathan.

"Sefira Da'at." said Evangel Mammon.

Once all the sigils had appeared, bands of pulsating red energy stretched between them, weaving them together into a single large array.

"Funesta Sefirot: Apocalypsi." they chanted together.

A pulsating sphere of black and red energy began to form in front of the array. The steady pattern of its throbbing made it almost resemble the beating of a heart, except for the force: each throb was so violent that the sphere seemed on the very brink of bursting. Enough offensive magical energy to level a mountain had been compressed into that tight ball, and the tightly packed offensive energy was struggling to explode outwards from its confinement and annihilate everything around it.

Launched from the array of Mass-Production Magical Girls, it fell slowly and ponderously through the air. It was so unstable from all of the power that had been packed into it that it couldn't accelerate to any significant speed without rupturing and releasing its payload. Its slow, almost gentle descent carried into to the ground in the heart of Tokyo-3. The moment it struck the ground, all of the unimaginably powerful offensive energy that had been bundled so tightly within it seethed, surged against its restraints — and detonated.

Cataclysm.

A flower of destruction unfolded its petals at the point of impact. It engulfed the decoy buildings of Tokyo-3, reduced them to ash and scattered them to the winds. The covered ceiling of the GeoFront was shattered like an eggshell. Buildings and massive chunks of burning earth fell down into the cavern below, which now lay exposed like an open wound. A massive column of smoke and ash billowed into the sky, lifted by hot winds blowing out from the destruction below. Observing their work, the Mass-Production Magical Girls spoke in unison.

"Deus est mortuus. Humanitas est mortuus. Nunc est adventum puellae magica."

Then there was a pulse of magic from the gaping pit beneath their feet. The smoke dispersed, revealing that the structures at the bottom of the GeoFront still stood, defiantly intact. Central Dogma and the surrounding buildings had been shielded by a magical barrier projected by the five Magical Girls who now floated in the air above the black pyramid.

The message was clear: outnumbered they may be, but NERV would not die without a fight.

The formation of Mass-Production Magical Girls, enshrouded in the brightly burning magic lines and array of sigils of the incomplete Tainted Sefirot, descended into the exposed cavern towards their targets; and the Magical Girls of NERV rose up to meet them.


	37. And You Will Know My Name Is The Lord

**Chapter 37:** **And You Will Know My Name Is The Lord When I Lay My Vengeance Upon Thee**

The ceiling of the GeoFront had been blown open, the cavern exposed to the light of day for the first time in over a billion years. Now, the Magical Girls, its' last defenders, faced off against the formation of Evangels descending from above. The Evangels were arrayed in a hexagonal pattern, one in the center one in each of the six corners. Each was surrounded by a magic circle with a demonic sigil burning brightly in the center. Thick bands of magic energy connected the Evangels to one another, binding them tightly in formation. Unlike the Magical Girls, who were partially depleted from their recent battle with the Angel Tabris, they were all fresh and brimming with magical power. But no matter how intimidating their opponents, and no matter how poor the odds appeared to be, the Magical Girls' determination would never falter. They reacted as one to the approaching Evangels.

"Axel Shooter!"

"Plasma Lancer!

"Swallow Flier!"

A storm of energy projectiles bore down on the Evangels. However, the magic enshrouded figures didn't so much as flinch at the incoming barrage. Their bodies remained as motionless as statues within the interconnected magic circles that surrounded them. Their stillness was unnatural for humans, and made them seem more like robots than living beings.

The Evangels didn't move in response to the incoming attacks, but they reacted in another manner. The magic circles around them glowed diabolically, and the aura of magic emanating from them swelled massively. The air around them seemed to thicken and ripple as a vast quantity of magical energy flooded outwards. The missiles launched by the Magical Girls exploded harmlessly as the immense surge of energy struck them.

"We need to charge up stronger attacks if we're going to penetrate that formation." Nanoha said.

The Magic Girls raised their Intelligent Devices and began gathering the power they would need to punch through the incredibly dense haze of magical energy that boiled around the Evangels. However, building up that much power required time — time that the Magical Girls didn't appear to have. The Evangels' energy output didn't stop increasing; the magical radiance surrounding them continued to grow until the red lines of their magic sigils were glowing so brightly that they were painful to look at directly.

"Funesta Sefirot: Apocalypsi" the Evangels said in toneless voices.

The attack took form in front of them: a sphere of black and red energy, pulsating with malevolence. Even with all the distance between them and the Evangels, the Magical Girls could not help but flinch in the face of such terrible energy. The orb began descending towards the Magical Girls, bathing the exposed interior of the GeoFront in hellish red light like some unholy sun, and there was no doubt in any of their minds that it was powerful enough to destroy them all. There was no possible defense that could stand against the infernal energies that would be released when it detonated, no barrier that would not crumble to ash before the might of this all-encompassing cataclysm.

But even in the face of such an overwhelming attack, the Magical Girls were not helpless. After nearly a year of fighting the Angels, they were familiar with handling opponents who surpassed them in terms of raw power. And in particular, they had a way of dealing with powerful but slow-moving attacks that were too strong to be stopped by ordinary methods. Shamal, shutting her eyes against the harsh red light emanating from the incoming attack, called on the power of Klarer Wind and opened a portal in front of the sphere. She placed the other end in the upper atmosphere, facing out towards space, where there wasn't anything for the attack to harm. The throbbing ball of red and black energy passed through the portal amidst a whirlwind of air being drawn into vacuum; then Shamal snapped the portal closed, cutting off the last of the sphere's sinister red glow. The city-buster had been neutralized — and the other Magical Girls had finished charging their attacks.

"Divine Buster!"

"Thunder Smasher!"

"Comet Flier!"

"Fire Dragon Flash!"

The brilliantly colored streams of magical energy launched by the girls blazed through the air and converged on the Evangels. The beams began to slow as they entered the magic-saturated air surrounding the Sefirot Formation, but continued to burn their was through the dense field of energy that had deflected the earlier attacks. Inch by inch, they penetrated the thick miasma and drilled towards the Evangels at the center of the cloud. For a moment, it looked like they might strike true. But then the network of glowing lines surrounding the Evangels pulsed with additional power. The Magical Girls' attacks were snuffed out like candles in the wind by a massive outpouring of energy that rushed like a tsunami from the seven interconnected magic circles.

"Insincerus Sefirot: Vitio" the Evangels chanted in unison.

Terrible energies once more began flowing forth from the Sefirot Formation. This time, however, the Evangels' magic did not coalesce into a single projectile that might be caught by one of Shamal's portals. Instead, innumerable fine filaments of corrupt magic energy began sprouting from the glowing lines of the sigils composing the Sefirot Formation. The tendrils seemed to spread out and fill the sky, as though the Magical Girls were caught beneath the center of a descending spider web.

The girls tried to prepare defensive spells, but there was nothing they could do. Tendrils of dark magic were closing on them from every direction. There was nowhere to run or hide, and any barriers they created would surely shatter at the merest touch of the tangled braids of seething black energy coursing towards them.

Then, abruptly, an unexpected voice shouted out:

"DIABOLIC EMISSION!"

A sphere of swirling black energy materialized around the girl at the center of the Sefirot Formation. The brilliant magical energy burning through her body was quenched in an instant, like a torch plunged into muddy water. The ravenous ball of dark energy devoured every drop of her magic, shredding her Barrier Jacket as though it were mere tissue and making her metal helmet shatter like brittle clay. The destructive cloud then began to expand, swelling towards the other members of the Sefirot Formation. It drew into itself the web of bonded sigils and magical symbols that flowed between the Evangels, gorging on the bands of magical energy between them that allowed them to function so cohesively as a single unit. The six Evangels who occupied positions on the rim of the formation were forced to break the Sefirot and scatter lest they be engulfed as well.

A moment later, the churning mass of black magic vanished. Drained of magic and battered unconscious by the attack, Evangel Mammon plummeted from the sky like a stone. A moment before she would have struck the ground, a flight spell caught her and eased her landing. However, no one was paying attention to Evangel Mammon, but rather to the girl who had cast the spells. Hayate Yagami sat in a wheelchair outside the entrance to Central Dogma, the book of Reinforce spread in her lap and a look of indomitable determination in her eyes.

"Hayate!" Nanoha exclaimed. "What are you doing here!?"

"I heard the announcement by the Commander." Hayate said. "I've been lying around doing nothing for too long. I just can't stay idle anymore — not when so much is at stake."

"Dummy!" Vita said. "You're injured! You shouldn't be out here!"

"I know you want to protect me, Vita." Hayate said. "But I'm a Magical Girl too. It's my duty to fight, even if it puts my life in danger."

"But—" Vita protested.

"Let me fight." Hayate pleaded. "This whole time, while I've been in the hospital, you've been putting yourself in danger to protect me. Let me at least help you out here at the very end in return."

"We should let her fight." Signum said. "We will need all the strength we can muster to prevail."

"I think it would be an honor to fight by your side again." Fate said.

"It's up to you, Hayate." Shamal said. "If this is what you want..."

"It is." Hayate affirmed.

"...then we welcome you to fight alongside us." Shamal finished.

"It's decided, then." Nanoha said. "Welcome back, Hayate."

"Thank you." Hayate said.

"Dammit." Vita muttered. "I really like you, okay? So if you're going to fight, you better win. I wouldn't be able to bear it if you died."

Hayate smiled at her.

"You know, you're cute when you're flustered." she said.

"What!?" Vita blushed furiously. "Don't just say something like that out of the blue—"

"Talk later." Signum said abruptly. "The battle is resumed."

The Evangels had descended to the surface of the GeoFront and were now staring at the Magical Girls. They showed no compassion or concern for their fallen comrade, Evangel Mammon; however, they had reacted to her loss in a way by breaking out of formation. When creating the Mass-Production Magical Girls, SEELE had regarded human emotion as a weakness to be overcome. They couldn't rely on young girls to think rationally in the midst of a battle, they had thought; a perfect warrior would be one who was cold, ruthless, and utterly emotionless. And so they had destroyed the Evangels original personalities, using the blood of Lilith to imprint their minds with a carefully selected set of traits and skills — among them, unconditional loyalty to the Council and uncompromising ruthlessness in battle. However, because of this, the Evangels also lacked the greatest strength of humanity: flexibility. While they had been programmed with many strategies for fighting together as a team, all of these strategies had involved the participation of Evangel Mammon. It may have been possible to adapt some of these strategies so to be effective even without Evangel Mammon's assistance, but the Mass-Production Magical Girls lacked the mental flexibility to figure out how. Instead, the Evangels switched from thinking about fighting together to fighting the opposing Magical Girls one-on-one. The Evangels formed a line, each one staring at her chosen opponent: Evangel Satan at Nanoha; Evangel Leviathan at Fate; Evangel Lucifer at Signum; Evangel Beelzebub at Shamal; Evangel Belphegor at Vita; and Evangel Asmodeus at Hayate.

Six Magical Girls versus six Evangels. An even fight.

* * *

Nanoha stared across the battlefield at her enemy. Though her opponent's metal face mask betrayed no emotion, she could feel waves of enmity radiating from Evangel Satan. Red magical energy flowed around her body and gathered in front of her, solidifying into the form of a floating dagger. The glowing dagger then hurled itself at Nanoha.

"Protection!" Nanoha shouted.

A pink shield appeared in front of her and blocked the dagger. However, upon impact, the magical energy composing the dagger exploded like a small bomb. Taken by surprise by the detonation, Nanoha flinched, and her barrier wavered. Evangel Satan took advantage of her weakness by manifesting more magical energy. A variety of glowing red weapons took form in the air in front of her — sword, poleaxe, sickle, morningstar, and something Nanoha couldn't even identify — then hurtled through the air towards Nanoha.

"Protection!"

The magically manifested weapons exploded all around Nanoha, gouging craters into the earth and sending plumes of smoke into the air. Nanoha's barrier managed to absorb all of the energy from the explosions before breaking, but she was still pelted by falling debris. What's more, as the smoke cleared, she saw that Evangel Satan had already begun readying another barrage of weapons. Since it was clear she couldn't win as long as she remained on the defensive, Nanoha decided to switch to attacking.

"Divine Shooter!"

There was no time to prepare a complicated attack. Nanoha used her most basic offensive spell, hurling a barrage of pink spheres at Evangel Satan. At the same time, Evangel Satan launched the cluster of weapons she had manifested. Nanoha's energy bullets struck Evangel Satan's explosive weapons midway between the two Magical Girls, causing a series of detonates to obscure the area between them. Nanoha swiftly changed position behind the cloud of dust, hoping to use the time afforded by the smokescreen to charge a more powerful attack.

"Divine —"

Before she could complete the Divine Buster, however, a nearby explosion made her stumble. Evangel Satan was apparently firing blindly into the smoke, spreading out her weapons instead of concentrating them on a single point. Because they exploded on impact, she didn't need to score a direct hit to be dangerous. Nanoha couldn't take the time to charge up one of her stronger attacks with blasts detonating all around her; and raising a barrier or firing back with Divine Shooter would just result in the same stalemate as before.

Nanoha did have one idea she thought might work. It seemed like Evangel Satan's weapons were very unstable, and would explode at the slightest provocation. This was a property she could use against her opponent. It would be a gamble, but Nanoha couldn't see any other path to victory. She would have to risk everything on this one chance.

Nanoha didn't wait for the smoke to clear. She activated Flier Fin and jumped high into the air. Her hovering body presented a clear target to Evangel Satan, one that the enemy Magical Girl could not possibly ignore. As Nanoha expected, Evangel Satan immediately prepared to attack her. Numerous glowing red weapons of all varieties manifested around her and oriented themselves to be launched at Nanoha. In the moment before they could be fired, Nanoha acted.

"Barrel Shot!"

A pink magic circle manifested around the array of weapons generated by Evangel Satan and then contracted to bind them in place. However, when the bands of restraining magic came into contact with the unstable and highly explosive offensive magic of the weapons, it triggered them to prematurely detonate. The entire group of weapons that Evangel Satan had summoned exploded directly in front of her, engulfing her in a cloud of flame and smoke. Nanoha didn't imagine for a moment that this trick would defeat Evangel Satan, but it might distract her for long enough to let Nanoha seize the advantage. She began pouring her magic into Raising Heart.

"Divine... Buster..." Nanoha began.

The smoke around Evangel Satan cleared. Seeing the attack being prepared by Nanoha, she quickly regained her composure. Rather than summoning any more weapons, which would surely be blown away by the energy Nanoha was gathering, Evangel Satan focused all her magic into a coherent beam. A massive pillar of red energy blazed out from her outstretched hands and flew towards Nanoha.

"...EXTENSION!" Nanoha finished.

A thick beam of pink energy erupted from the tip of Nanoha staff and lanced downwards towards Evangel Satan. It struck the oncoming beam of red energy head-on, and the two outpourings struggled against one another for dominance. Nanoha and Evangel Satan both strained to pour more magic into their attacks; to overwhelm their opponent's beam with their own. The intersection between the beams wavered, moving first towards one girl and then towards the other.

"I don't know anything about you." Nanoha said. "I don't know why you became a Magical Girl for SEELE. It's possible that, like me, you were tricked into fighting for someone without understand what a bad person they were. In fact, I hope that's the case, rather than you knowing about SEELE's true goals and deciding to join them anyway. Because if you're supporting them of your own free will even knowing what they plan to do, that would make you a bad person too. But if you've only been tricked... then maybe you're a good person at heart. Maybe we could even become friends someday. I'd like that. But right now, I have to stop you. So please forgive me if I go a little hard on you, okay? MAXIMUM POWER — ABSOLUTE DESTRUCTION!"

A massive outpouring of energy surged from Raising Heart. The beam of magic firing from Nanoha's staff swelled massively in size, rapidly overwhelming Evangel Satan's beam. Before the enemy Magical Girl could react, the torrent of pink energy had blown away her attack and enveloped her. The magic shredded her Barrier Jacket and shattered her metal helmet. It flooded her body, rushing inwards towards her Linker Core. Overwhelmed by the irresistible rush of Nanoha's magic, Evangel Satan's Intelligent Device sputtered and failed. The girl's strength deserted her, and she collapsed unconscious to the ground.

* * *

Fate stood across from Evangel Leviathan. A thick cloud of red magic boiled around the enemy Magical Girl, and the energy seemed to be getting absorbed by her straightjacket-like Barrier Jacket. Fate couldn't tell whether the spell was offensive or defensive in nature. If Evangel Leviathan was powering up her Barrier Jacket, Fate's best option would be to strike now, before the Evangel's defenses got any stronger. However, if Evangel Leviathan was actually building up energy for some form of attack, then committing to a strike now could leave Fate unable to shield herself. There was no time to consider the matter at length; Fate only had a split second to make her decision. Judging that the Mass Production Magical Girls were more oriented towards offense than defense, Fate raised a protective shield in front of her.

"Defenser!"

Evangel Leviathan finished gathering energy, and Fate braced for her attack. Numerous tubes began sprouting out of the girl's Barrier Jacket and falling to the ground around her. Fate examined them more carefully, and saw that they were snakes composed of magical energy. Their eyes were glowing pits of red fire, and their fangs were glittering crescents of offensive magic. More and more extended from Evangel Leviathan's body covering the ground around her in a thick mat of intertwining coils. However, while the snakes had an air of immense danger about them, it appeared they could only move slowly across the ground. What's more, Evangel Leviathan, standing at the center of the writhing mass with their tails fused to her Barrier Jacket, seemed unable to move. Now was Fate's opportunity to attack.

"Plasma Lancer!"

Numerous spheres of crackling yellow energy appeared in front of Fate's defensive barrier, then were launched at Evangel Leviathan. It was a relatively weak attack, one that wouldn't have worked on an Angel. However, Evangel Leviathan was human — she didn't have a powerful Barrier like the Angels did. As such, Fate's primary concern was using too much force rather than too little. This attack should be enough to penetrate the girl's Barrier Jacket without causing irreparable damage to her body.

As expected, Evangel Leviathan had no Barrier. However, completely unexpectedly, she had something else. As Fate launched her attack, two magic circles appeared in the air behind the enemy Magical Girl. They glowed green rather than red; and rather than bearing the Sigil of Leviathan, they had a design that made them resemble a pair of giant floating eyes. Each of these magic circles launched an attack identical to her own. Halfway between Fate and Evangel Leviathan, the two attacks collided. Each of the energy bullets Fate had fired was struck head-on by an identical counterattack, causing both to explode harmlessly. But because there were two magic circles issuing retaliation, the number of incoming magic blasts was twice the number Fate had sent out. Only half the yellow spheres were destroyed by collision with Fate's; the remainder continued forwards and exploded against Fate's defensive barrier. It shuddered under the impacts, and Fate was knocked down to her knees. She had essentially been hit by her own attack. Fate tightened her grip on Bardiche — Evangel Leviathan could be a tougher opponent than she'd thought.

"Thunder Smasher!" Fate yelled.

A stream of energy blazed like lightning from the head of Bardiche, shooting towards Evangel Leviathan. At the same time, the two magic circles behind the enemy Magical Girl issued identical bolts. The three beams collided, and Evangel Leviathan's two easily overmatched Fate's one. This time Fate's barrier couldn't withstand the force of the attack; it shattered, and Fate was blasted backwards. It took Fate a few seconds to get back onto her feet. When she did, she noticed that the mass of red snakes being generated by Evangel Leviathan's Barrier Jacket had continued to grow, and was in fact starting to get dangerously close. The heads of the nearest snakes were already rearing up in preparation to strike.

"Arc Saber!"

Fate used Bardiche's crescent blade to slice through the necks of the snakes threatening her, causing their severed heads to crumble into sparkling dust. She then immediately leapt backwards, both to put additional distance between herself and the rest of the approaching snakes and to dodge the counterattack that was surely incoming from the two green magic circles. However, no attack came. A few seconds passed, and the magic circles remained inert. Fate considered the situation.

"Photon Lancer!"

Fate fired a single ball of yellow energy at Evangel Leviathan. This time, the circles reacted, sending two bullets of yellow magic her way. One of them collided with and destroyed Fate's attack; Fate ducked under the other one and it exploded somewhere behind her.

"Arc Saber!"

Fate reignited the buzzing crescent blade. There was no response from the magic circles. It appeared they were only activated by ranged attacks. This was something that Fate could exploit.

"Bardiche — Zanber Form!" Fate ordered. "Riot Blade!"

Bardiche altered its form, becoming a sword with a massive blade of brilliant yellow energy. Evangel Leviathan's magic circles did not react. They could duplicated projectile attacks; but Fate's Arc Saber and Riot Blade spells were both physically attached to Bardiche, and Evangel Leviathan didn't hold a weapon of her own. Though Fate couldn't tell for certain, she suspected that Evangel Leviathan's Intelligent Device had taken the form of the metal helmet covering her face, upon which the Sigil of Leviathan faintly glowed.

Keeping a tight grip on her blazing sword, Fate took a long leap into the air. The arc of her jump put her on a trajectory to land on the snake-covered ground close behind Evangel Leviathan. The snake heads in that area perked up, turning to greet her with their glowing fangs. However, as Fate began to descend, she activated her flight spell, slowing her fall. At the same time, she spun around towards Evangel Leviathan, bringing her Riot Blade about in a sweeping arc. The humming blade of energy sliced cleanly through the two green magic circles floating behind Evangel Leviathan's back, causing them to shatter like glass in its wake. Fate then put more energy into her flight spell, rising back into the air as the snake heads below her snapped futilely at the bottoms of her feet. Fate deactivated the Riot Blade, converting Bardiche back into its shooting form, and began gathering energy. With the retaliating magic circles gone, she would be able to blast Evangel Leviathan with a Trident Smasher from safely beyond the reach of the snakes below — or so she thought.

"Noli fuge." Evangel Leviathan intoned, her hollow voice resonant with magic.

A red magic circle inscribed itself in the air above Fate, and she slammed into it like a ceiling. The barrier then abruptly descending, forcing back Fate towards the ground, into the waiting fangs of the snakes. They wrapped their coils around her body and plunged their fangs into her flesh. Fate's Barrier Jacket was no protection against the snakes; their fangs were needles of concentrated offensive magic that relentlessly punched through any defense. Once the magic was inside her body, it lost its solid form and began to dissolve into her blood. Instead of venom, the snakes were pumping Fate full of Evangel Leviathan's magic. Fate didn't know any protection spells to defend the inside of her body from magical attack; the caustic offensive magic that was surging into her veins would surely tear her to shreds from within.

Fate could only see one chance. The snakes biting into her were serving as conduits conducting a large amount of magic energy from Evangel Leviathan directly into Fate's body. But perhaps the connection worked both ways: if it conducted magic from Evangel Leviathan to Fate, then it could also conduct magic from Fate to Evangel Leviathan...

"Thunder Rage!"

Lightning exploded from Fate's body in all directions. Once discharged, the power began following the path of least resistance. The snakes, which had penetrated Fate's Barrier Jacket, were also weaknesses in Evangel Leviathan's Barrier Jacket. They acted like power cables, conducting the full force of the attack directly into the Magical Girls body and earthing it in her Linker Core. Evangel Leviathan twitched and shuddered as she was electrocuted from within. Finally, her Linker Core was overwhelmed; her helmet, the manifestation of her Device, lost its form and crumbled to glittering dust. As Evangel Leviathan collapsed unconscious on the ground, the rest of her magic faded as well: first her Barrier Jacket, then mass of snakes wrapped around Fate's body, and finally the boiling flood of offensive magic that had been injected into Fate's blood.

Fate gave a sigh of relief; that fight had been too close for comfort.

* * *

Signum eyed her opponent, Evangel Lucifer, wearily. Normally she would not have any concerns about taking on an enemy of this caliber, but she was still gravely weakened from her battle with the Angel Tabris. Signum held Laevatein in a guard position, waiting to see how her opponent would attack.

Hot red energy began seething around Evangel Lucifer, flowing towards her hands and gathering into burning glove-like auras around her fists. She subtly shifted her weight, settling into a martial arts pose.

"Violet Lightning Flash." Signum said evenly.

Laevatein became sheathed in a layer of flames. At the same moment, when Signum was distracted casting her spell, Evangel Lucifer rushed forwards. Signum slashed at the other girl, trying to counter, but Evangel Lucifer caught the sword by the edge in one of her hands. The fiery energy surrounding her hand like a glove hissed and crackled as it warred against the thick flames coating Laevatein. Given enough time, Laevtaein's offensive magic might have won out, but the Evangel only gripped the sword for a second. She brought her other hand around in a short arc, driving a magically enhanced fist into Signum's side. Then she leaped backwards, back out of range of any counterattack, and resumed her neutral pose.

Signum turned her head to the side and spat out some blood. Even with the protection of her Barrier Jacket, the impact of the offensive magic coating Evangel Lucifer's fists had been brutal; it felt like one of her ribs had been cracked. It was curious, though, that the Evangel had retreated back to range after delivering one strike. With distance between them, Signum's sword conferred her an advantage. Once Evangel Lucifer was inside her guard, with one hand on Laevatein, she should have tried to twist the sword out of Signum's grasp or else aim a strike at her elbow to make her drop it. It made no sense to go for a punch to the side of her chest when she had the opportunity to disarm her opponent.

Signum started to charge at Evangel Lucifer, then planted her foot and turned her forward momentum into a sword thrust. Evangel Lucifer used the back of one hand to strike the flaming blade, knocking it to the side so it missed her body, then used her other hand to send a punch hurtling at Signum's skull. This time Signum's reactions were fast enough to dodge; she ducked under the glowing fist, which ruffled her hair. However, as soon as her fist had passed Signum's head, Evangel Lucifer opened her hand and drew it back towards her. She grabbed Signum's hair and pulled Signum towards her by the head. At the same time, her other hand was flying towards Signum's midsection. Signum's sword arm was overextended; she lacked the leverage to swing it towards Evangel Lucifer's back from that position, and didn't have time to draw it back to herself to block. Evangel Lucifer delivered a hammer blow to Signum's stomach, below the rib cage. Then she released Signum's hair, leapt backwards, and resumed her standard pose.

Signum coughed and wiped bloody spittle from her lips, but inwardly nodded to herself. Her suspicion was confirmed: Evangel Lucifer was holding back. Twice now she had effortless countered Signum's actions and gained a superior position; but instead of pressing her advantage and ending the fight, she would fall back into her basic pose and prepare to deliver a different strike. Signum would have believed she was showing off, if she'd though the Evangel still capable of an emotion such as arrogance. More likely it was part of her battle programming. It was like she wasn't viewing the fight as a continuous event, but as a series of exercises: strike the opponent and return to neutral stance to await the next exercise. She was probably programmed with a list of combat maneuvers and the ideal responses to them; instead of reading the situation and thinking tactically, she simply input Signum's actions into a database and carried out the preprogrammed response. Signum wondered if Evangel Lucifer had ever participated in an actual fight before, or if the entirety of her training had just consisted of an encyclopedia of moves being imprinted on her brain.

Evangel Lucifer really wasn't a person to SEELE, just a tool. Signum grimaced at the thought that she might have ended up the same way, if Commander Precia hadn't requested that she be transferred to NERV. She'd show the old men that there was more to being a warrior than carrying out actions like a mindless machine.

Signum rushed Evangel Lucifer, a deliberately sloppy attack that could be easily blocked and countered. Since Signum knew what the main flaws in her attack were and the obvious ways they could be taken advantage of, she could be reasonably confident in how she expected Evangel Lucifer to respond to it. Sure enough, Evangel Lucifer took a step backwards, dodging the first sweep of the blade; then when Signum started to sweep it back, she stepped forwards again and swung a magically-enhanced fist. As the Evangel's fist struck Laevatein, Signum withdrew her magic energy from the weapon. Without magic reinforcement, the sword's blade was snapped in half by the offensive magic imbued in the Evangel's fist. Signum's Device disintegrated in a shower of sparks. The Evangel's other fist struck Signum across the jaw, knocking loose a few teeth and sending Signum flying backwards. As she struck the ground, Signum loosened her Barrier Jacket, allowing the magic composing it to start bleeding away in a haze of sparkling dust.

Signum imagined Evangel Lucifer processing the situation in what was left of her mind. Signum was lying prone on the ground, her Barrier Jacket disintegrating; there was a high probability she was unconscious. The designated action in this situation was to finish off the incapacitated enemy. Of course, her programmers would have included the other possibility, that enemy was merely feigning incapacitation in order to draw Evangel Lucifer into striking range; the so-called "Wounded Gazelle Gambit". However, Signum's injuries were clearly severe; she had gone into the fight already weakened, and had sustained still further damage. Since she had been unable to fight effectively against Evangel Lucifer even while wielding the sword Laevatein, it would be inconceivable for her to have a chance empty-handed. The material form of Laevatein had been broken; in the time it would take for Signum to materialize another, Evangel Lucifer could easily fall back to a safe distance. Therefore, the action dictated by her battle programming would be to carry out a finishing move.

Evangel Lucifer began walking towards Signum's limp body. As she did, she brought her hands together. The auras of glowing red energy that encased them fused and changed shape, becoming a sword of pure offensive magic. Evangel Lucifer stepped over Signum's body, holding the sword out and point-down, ready to deliver a strike that would surely penetrate Signum's crumbling Barrier Jacket and fatally pierce her through the heart.

It was an elegant coup de grace, one which Evangel Lucifer was carrying out with grace, which only went to show that whoever had programmed Evangel Lucifer's fighting skills had been inferior to Signum's tutor. The Evangel had been programmed to fight with dignity, poise, and a minimum of wasted movement. Signum had been taught to defeat the enemy by any means necessary. As Evangel Lucifer stood astride her, prepared to drive the sword down through her heart and kill her in a single clean blow, Signum lashed upwards with one of her legs, planting her boot solidly in Evangel Lucifer's crotch. While generally considered a more effective move against men, a hard hit in that area was painful for any gender. However, to make sure, Signum released the magic energy of her Barrier Jacket composing the boot, causing it to explode with the force of a bomb between Evangel Lucifer's thighs.

The Evangel toppled like a statue.

Signum drew herself up over the fallen Evangel. She delivered a blow to the Evangel's throat, to the unprotected area between the bottom of her helmet and the top of her Barrier Jacket, to close her windpipe. Then she dug her fingers into either side of the Evangel's neck, blocking off the carotid arteries. Unconsciousness came quick, and the Evangel's helmet and Barrier Jacket dissolved as the girl's magic was redirected towards the task of keeping her alive.

Signum drew herself slowly to her feet. She was almost completely drained of magic now; everything she had left was being used to heal the fresh injuries the Evangel had inflicted on her. But she was victorious. That was all that mattered.

* * *

Shamal faced off against Evangel Beelzebub. Her magic was primarily defensive in nature, based on reflecting an opponent's attacks back at them, so she needed to wait for enemy to make the first move. What's more, while she had employed the tactic of closing portals while the enemy was halfway through against the Angels, she didn't feel comfortable doing so against a fellow human being. Evangel Beelzebub might be her enemy, but she was still a person. She might not even be a bad person; after all, it wasn't that long ago that Shamal herself had held misguided loyalty towards SEELE. She wanted to settle this battle non-fatally, if possible.

Though Evangel Beelzebub stood motionless, Shamal could sense her preparing to attack. The aura of magic energy emanating from her body surged as she readied herself to strike. Shamal tensed up as well; she didn't know what kind of attack her opponent would be launching, and might have only fractions of a second to open a portal to catch it. She used the spell Panzer Geist to create a defensive barrier around her body in case she couldn't intercept the first attack; but depending on how powerful the Evangel's offensive abilities were, even that might not be enough to protect her.

Evangel Beelzebub abruptly launched her attack. Some of the magical energy surrounding her condensed into the shape of a glowing red chain, which launched itself through the air at Shamal. Shamal quickly opened a portal between herself and the oncoming chain, placing the other portal out over the ocean where she was reasonably sure there were no innocent bystanders. Evangel Beelzebub reacted by materializing a second chain and flinging it at Shamal as well. Since it was another direct attack from the front, Shamal simply widened the portal so that this chain also passed through it.

Evangel Beelzebub retracted the chains back to her body. Then she launched them off to her sides, on long arcing trajectories that would carry them to strike Shamal's body from both sides. Shamal closed the portal in front of her and opened a new pair of portals at her sides. The chains passed through them, each entering one side and exiting the other while bypassing her body. Evangel Beelzebub tried to redirect the chains once more, curving them around to strike her exposed front and back, but Shamal simply snapped the portals shut. The closing portals severed the ends of the chains, and the disconnected portions fizzled into harmless red sparks.

Energy once more gathered around the body of Evangel Beelzebub. This time, instead of taking the form of chains, the magic became innumerable motes of red light that surrounded Evangel Beelzebub like a field of stars. Then, at some unspoken command, the countless flowing pinpricks flew towards Shamal. Shamal quickly opened a portal in front of herself; but instead of passing into it, the small flecks of burning light scattered. The didn't follow a straight trajectory like bullets, but rather seemed to swarm around her like a cloud of flies.

Shamal could only open one pair of portals at a time; she couldn't defend against an attack that came from all directions at once. The fly-like motes of offensive magic easily maneuvered around her attempts at defensive portals and settled over her body in a blanket-like layer. Each mote burned like a drop of flaming oil. Individually, their power was nearly insignificant; but Shamal was covered in countless thousands of them. If she hadn't encased her body in a defensive shell of magic with Panzer Geist, they probably would've been able to eat through her Barrier Jacket and burn her to ashes. Even with the layer of magic covering her, Shamal was assaulted by a wave of pain.

The many small motes of magic quickly exhausted their power and fizzled out against the green magic shielding Shamal. That one attack alone was not sufficient to overwhelm her. However, it did break her concentration, allowing Evangel Beelzebub to once more summon her chains and send them flying at Shamal. The first one shattered to pieces against Panzer Geist; but the impact overwhelmed the already-weakened barrier, which shattered like glass under the impact of the second chain. The chain wrapped itself around Shamal's throat and began to slowly contract, cutting off her air.

Shamal dropped to her knees, fighting for breath. She was taken aback by the efficiency of the attack. The Angels had mostly just tried to blast the Magical Girls, so their Barrier Jackets had provided them with a layer of last-line defense if their shields were broken. The Evangels, however, were human, and so knew about human vulnerabilities and weaknesses. Evangel Beelzebub knew that she could kill Shamal without having to break through her Barrier Jacket if she stopped her from being able to breathe.

And with that revelation, Shamal realized how she could beat Evangel Beelzebub. She'd been fighting as though her opponent was just another Angel. But Evangel Beelzebub was human like her — and so had the same human frailties. The Angels, having bodies made of materialized magic, had been completely solid. Since Shamal could only open portals in empty spaces, she never would've been able to open a portal inside the body of an Angel. But human bodies had plenty of open spaces in them. The windpipe, for instance, as Evangel Beelzebub was currently using to her advantage. But Shamal could do the same to her. The Evangel's impressive straightjacket-like Barrier Jacket and intimidating metal helmet wouldn't protect against portals.

Shamal opened one end of a portal inside Evangel Beelzebub's trachea, blocking her ability to breathe. However, that alone wasn't enough; since Shamal had already been deprived of air for some time by Evangel Beelzebub's chain, she would lose a contest of endurance. Therefore, she opened the other end of the portal to the vacuum of outer space. All of the air was sucked out of Evangel Beelzebub's lungs in an instant, and the enemy Magical Girl collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut. Her concentration broken, the chain that had been wrapped around Shamal's neck fell apart and dissolved. Not wanting to risk killing the other girl, Shamal quickly closed her portals as well.

For a moment, both girls fell to their knees gasping for breath. Then Evangel Beelzebub, perhaps better conditioned to withstand pain than Shamal, began rising back to her feet. Shamal opened a fist-sized portal in front of herself and placed the other side inside of the Evangel's stomach, then delivered a brutal internal gut-punch. Evangel Beelzebub fell face-first to the ground. She made a desperate gagging noise, then pulled off her metal helmet and vomited.

As far as Shamal was concerned, the fight was done; Evangel Beelzebub had no defense against her portals, so Shamal could keep beating her down all day. The problem was, it didn't look like Evangel Beelzebub was going to give up. She seemed perfectly ready to just keep standing back up until Shamal knocked her unconscious — no easy task, given Shamal's weak offensive abilities and the healing powers granted by an Intelligent Device. She could choke Evangel Beelzebub unconscious by opening another portal in her windpipe, but was afraid it would be too easy to accidentally kill the other girl that way.

After a moment's thought, Shamal opened a portal to the NERV infirmary. She quickly reached into one of medicine cabinets and drew out a syringe of tranquilizer. It was a medication Dr. Akagi had used on Hayate while treating her after her possession by Bardiel, so Shamal knew it would be effective even against the enhanced metabolism of a Magical Girl. She couldn't be sure the needle would penetrate Evangel Beelzebub's Barrier Jacket, so she opened another portal inside the Magical Girl's body to inject it directly into her from within. Evangel Beelzebub shuddered, then fell to the ground and drifted into unconsciousness.

* * *

Vita glared at her opponent, Evangel Belphegor. The Evangel's metal mask showed no emotion, but the Sigil of Belphegor emblazoned on it smoldered with magical energy.

"I want to have a proper reunion with Hayate, so let's finish this quickly." Vita said. "Swallow Flier!"

She swung her hammer Graf Eisen about in an arc, sending a projectile of orange energy hurtling towards the enemy Magical Girl. It had crossed half the distance between them when Evangel Belphegor countered with her own attack. A red magic circle containing the Sigil of Belphegor appeared on the ground between them, rapidly growing in size to cover the entire area between the two girls. The projectile launched by Vita abruptly altered its course, harmlessly impacting the ground well short of Evangel Belphegor. Then the magic circle expanded further, its red lines passing beneath Vita's feet, and Vita knew why her attack had missed. It felt like the force of gravity was doubled within the magic circle, the extra weight driving Vita down to her knees. Vita eyed Evangel Belphegor warily and prepared to roll to the side, expecting her opponent to take advantage of her reduced mobility within the circle by launching an attack. However, Evangel Belphegor showed no sign of motion; the enemy Magical Girl stood idly beyond the far edge of the magic circle, as though waiting to see what Vita would do next.

"Don't get cocky, idiot." Vita said. "This alone isn't enough to stop me! Swallow Flier!"

Vita launched another blazing missile from Graf Eisen. Compensating for the increased gravity, she launched it on a trajectory over Evangel Belphegor's head, so that it would fall down in an arc and strike her from above. However, it had only partway completed its flight when the magic circle flashed and the force of gravity doubled again. Her attack once more fell harmlessly short of its target.

Vita reconsidered her options. She didn't know if there was any upper limit to how much Evangel Belphegor could increase the force of gravity within her magic circle, but staying within its bounds was starting to look like a poor proposition. She would stand a much better chance if she could get outside its area of effect. However, that course of action posed problems of its own. When the magic circle had expanded across the ground between them, it had not started from the center and expanded evenly in all directions. Rather, the point on the edge closest to Evangel Belphegor had remained fixed, while the point on the opposite edge closest to Vita had moved outwards. Thus, the shortest distance to an edge would require her to move forwards, towards Evangel Belphegor. In contrast, moving away from Evangel Belphegor would take her towards the fastest-expanding part of the circle, the part that would increase in distance the most if Evangel Belphegor grew the circle again.

There was no way around it: if Vita wanted out of this crushing magic circle, she'd have to go through Evangel Belphegor.

"Alright, metal-head; let's see how you handle _this_!" Vita yelled. "Destruction Hammer!"

She poured magical energy into Graf Eisen, and the hammer's head grew to gigantic size. The enormous weapon was far too heavy for her to hold up in the current quadruple gravity, and its head came crashing down onto the ground in front of her. Vita focused her magic on the hammer's handle, which began growing in length. The hammer's magic-imbued head began rushing forwards, tearing through the ground like a plow. For a moment, it looked like it would strike true; then the magic circle glowed brightly beneath Vita's feet and the force of gravity doubled once again. The increased weight of Graf Eisen was too much for the ground to handle, and the massive hammer broke through the surface and began to sink underground. Vita had to shrink it back to its normal size to maintain her hold on it.

"You're a real one-trick pony, aren't you?" Vita gritted out. "Don't you have any imagination?"

Evangel Belphegor only stared silently from behind her faceless metal helm. Despite her bravado, Vita was in a serious situation. It was clear that her opponent would respond to any attack by increasing the force of gravity within the magic circle. Ranged attacks were futile; the only chance Vita had was to reach the Evangel and strike her directly. However, once Vita started moving towards her, Evangel Belphegor would probably double gravity again. Vita was already experiencing eight times normal gravity. Doubling it again would subject her to 16 G. She had learned about G-force in school at SEELE, as part of preparations for the flight spell that Graf Eisen would grant her. A normal human, she remembered, would black out when subjected to 5 G. A properly trained and equipped jet fighter pilot could remain conscious in up to 9 G. A Magical Girl, supported by flight spells, the protective magic of her Barrier Jacket, and healing magic repairing her internal injures, could likely handle quite a bit more. But under normal conditions, exposure to such high G-force would be limited to fractions of a second, during high-speed aerial maneuvers. A sustained, continuous 16 G over about a minute would likely kill her regardless of what magic she used to support herself.

Vita grimaced. She'd just have to do it in less than a minute, then; because there was no force in the world that could persuade her to give up. Not when Hayate was depending on her.

"Ready or not, here I come." Vita said. "Rocket Hammer!"

Energy gathered at the back of Graf Eisen and ignited like a rocket engine. The force of the magic propelled Vita forwards towards Evangel Belphegor. At the same time, as expected, the magic circle increased in power once more. Even with her flight spells running at full power, Vita fell face-first to the ground like she was made of lead. But even so, she did not release her grip on Graf Eisen. The hammer continued to burn brightly with orange energy, struggling to drag its wielder towards her target.

"Gonna take..."

Vita felt like a mountain had been dropped on her back. Pushing all other thoughts out of her mind, she focused all her concentration on her limbs. Though they felt so cumbersome that she could only move them an inch at a time, she managed to get her hands under her.

"...more than that..."

Vita pushed upwards. Her muscles screamed in agony, beginning her to surrender to the crushing weight pressing down on her. Vita ignored them, straightening out her arms inch by painful inch, until she was able to pull herself to her knees. Then she turned her attention to her legs. Though her bones felt like they might shatter at any second under the horrific weight of her body, Vita began straightening them as well. Her feet tore deep indentations into the ground, as though she were stepping in lightly-packed snow rather than standing on solid earth.

"...to keep me down!"

Vita stood, and for the first time Evangel Belphegor's statue-like composure seemed to waver. The magic circle spread across the ground beneath Vita brightened momentarily, then flickered and dimmed again. Evangel Belphegor had reached her limit; she was already pouring every drop of her magical energy into the circle, and couldn't increase its force any further.

"Don't you know..."

Vita felt lightheaded. She shrank the size of her Barrier Jacket, mercilessly contracting it around her limbs in order to force blood back into her brain. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she no longer minded being the shortest member of her group; while once she had worried that her small stature might lead to her being rejected as a candidate to become a Magical Girl, she understood that it was now the only reason she was still conscious — it meant that there was less distance that her heavy blood had to be pumped.

"...who I am?"

Continuing to walk forwards was the hardest thing Vita had ever done in her life, but she resolutely placed one foot in front of the other. She ignored the pain in her legs, ignored the feeling of her magic reserves being rapidly depleted, ignored everything but the remaining distance between herself and Evangel Belphegor. And though her lungs burned as she struggled to breathe the densely compressed air, she shouted her defiance at the Magical Girl trying to crush her.

"My name is Vita, Lady Knight of Adririon, the Might of God; and there is nothing in this world I cannot destroy!"

The magic engine powering Graf Eisen gave one last crucial burst of thrust, allowing the hammer to cross the remaining distance to Evangel Belphegor. With all of her energy completely invested in powering the magic circle, the enemy Magical Girl had none left to defend herself. Graf Eisen impacted the girl directly in the face, shattering her helmet and knocking her unconscious in a single blow. As she crumpled to the ground, the magic circle she had created faded, and Vita heaved a sigh of relief as the terrible weight on her body dissipated.

* * *

Evangel Asmodeus slowly floated down through the air towards Hayate. Though Hayate put on a brave face for her friends, she secretly worried about her ability to fight. This was the first time she had drawn on Reinforce's magic since it had awakened as Bardiel several months ago. She didn't know if she was still capable of using the Device's full power after what Nanoha had done to suppress Bardiel; or worse, where it was possible that using too much magic might cause the Angel to reawaken. Worse still, when she'd tried casting her flight spell earlier, she'd realized that she'd always used her legs to steer it. Now, unable to move or feel her legs, she was also incapable of controlled flight. She might be able to come up with a modified version of the spell, given time; but for this fight, she would be confined to her wheelchair, unable to dodge.

"Misteltein!"

Hayate decided to strike first, hoping to take out the enemy Evangel before she had a chance to launch an attack that Hayate might not be able to block. Her spell caused nine spears of light to fall from the sky towards the enemy Magical Girl. However, Evangel Asmodeus dodged them easily, performing a series of mechanically smooth and graceful spins and flips through the air that took her through the group of falling spears without difficulty. The Evangel then held out one hand towards Hayate, and a jet of flame erupted from her palm.

"Panzer Schild!"

Hayate managed to raise a barrier just in time to block the magical flamethrower. She quickly pumped energy into the defensive shield, parting the blazing enemy that flowed around her like a river of flame. The barrier glowed with heat, but held firm in the face of the attack. After a few moments, Evangel Asmodeus realized that she couldn't overwhelm Hayate this way and changed tactics. The stream of flame relented as Evangel Asmodeus cupped her hands in front of her. A small sphere of fire ignited between her palms. Though tiny in size, the ball of fire began to grow in brightness until it hurt Hayate's eyes to look at it. The air around Evangel Asmodeus grew hazy with heat, and the dirt beneath her feet baked and cracked. Hayate couldn't allow this attack to be launched or the sheer amount of heat might incinerate her through her shield.

"Atem des Eises!"

A deluge of freezing magic engulfed the area around Evangel Asmodeus, quenching the brilliant flame between her hands and encasing her in a prison of ice. Hayate realized that if she was fast enough, she might be able to take advantage of this immobility. The only question was what spell to use. Diabolic Emission covered the largest area, but also took the most time to cast, and it was apparent that Evangel Asmodeus didn't intend to stay frozen for long. Her body had begun glowing with an aura of intense heat, causing cracks to spread through the ice. Hayate decided to use her fastest spell instead.

"Misteltein!"

Nine more spears of light rained from the sky, aimed at the trapped Evangel, but they weren't quick enough. Evangel Asmodeus exploded out of the ice encasing her and nimbly dodged the spears with mechanical grace. Hayate was struck by how artificial the movements were, lacking any of the uncertainty or hesitation displayed by normal humans. She couldn't consider it for long, however, as Evangel Asmodeus was preparing another attack. The Evangel raised her hands above her head, and a large glowing magic circle containing Sigil of Asmodeus inscribed itself between them. The sigil pulsed, and a massive beam of blazing red magic roared towards Hayate.

"Hraesvelgr!"

Hayate countered by creating three magic sigils of her own, each of which shot a beam of energy at the incoming attack. The beams collided mid-air and detonated in an enormous explosion. The area between the two battling Magical Girls was engulfed in an enormous cloud of smoke and debris. Hayate realized with growing fear that she couldn't see what Evangel Asmodeus was doing on the other side of the cloud. She'd managed to counter the attacks launched at her so far, but only because she'd been able to see them coming. Evangel Asmodeus could be flying straight at her right now and she wouldn't be able to tell.

"Diabolic Emission!"

A sphere of dark magic blossomed in the center of cloud, expanding outwards in all directions. Anything that Evangel Asmodeus tried to shoot at her through the smoky veil should get absorbed by the spell's power before striking her. This time, however, it was the Evangel who had anticipated her. Instead of firing through the smoke, she had decided to fly over it. By the time Hayate saw her passing over the apex of the expanding Diabolic Emission and beginning to descend, it was too late to do anything about it. Evangel Asmodeus landed next to Hayate and then whirled about, delivering a vicious spin-kick into the side of her wheelchair. The force of her blow knocked the chair over and sent Hayate sprawling across the ground. The Evangel began walking towards the paralyzed Magical Girl, her fists glowing red-hot with magic.

"Misteltein!"

It was all about anticipation, Hayate had realized. She and the Evangel were locked in a dance, matching action and reaction. The only way to win was to take her enemy by surprise. Since she'd already cast Misteltein twice before during this battle, Evangel Asmodeus was familiar with it. She knew exactly how to react, how to avoid the glowing spears that would fall from the sky. So Hayate did something she wouldn't expect. She cast the spell sideways. Instead of dropping down from above, the spears shot horizontally across the battlefield. Evangel Asmodeus, looking in entirely the wrong direction, never even saw them coming. Though eight of the spears passed harmlessly through empty space on either side of her, one of them struck her dead center in the chest. The beam of magical light passed straight through Evangel Asmodeus's heart, but it didn't do any physical damage. Instead, it overloaded her Linker Core, breaking her connection to her Device and cutting off her supply of magic. Evangel Asmodeus collapsed to the ground, her Barrier Jacket and her helmet dissolving in a spray of red sparks, and Hayate breathed a sigh of relief. In her first battle since her hospitalization, she had emerged victorious.

* * *

The seven Evangels defeated, the six Magical Girls reunited in the shadow of the black pyramid of Central Dogma. Vita righted Hayate's wheelchair and helped her back into it.

"Wow." Hayate said. "I can't believe we won."

"It isn't over yet." Nanoha cautioned her. "We've defeated the Magical Girls sent by SEELE, but we still have to stop the Commander."

"Stop Commander Testarossa?" Hayate asked. "Why? What's she doing?"

Before anyone could answer her, a tremor ran through the ground.A rumbling sound came from deep beneath them, starting distant but growing in intensity with each passing second until it became a deafening roar that blotted out all other sounds. It was more than a sound, it was a _sensation_, a world-shaking vibration that rattled them to the very bones. It was the sound of something rising up beneath them, rending its way through millions of tons of earth and steel, for kilometer after kilometer, as though Hell itself was forcing its way up to Earth. Then it arrived at the surface. The central pyramid exploded into a massive cloud of glass shards and metal shrapnel as Lilith, the Black Progenitor, mother of all terrestrial life, erupted from the ground. The enormous form of the Black Mother towered over the scarred battlefield at the bottom of the GeoFront, a god looming over the stunned mortals below.

Then, slowly, with a strange air of majesty, Her body began to crumble.

Her blood, the primordial soup of life, spilled in torrents from countless wounds. Great chunks of flesh fell from Her body and landed amidst the debris below. Her head split down the middle, breaking apart like an overripe fruit, and what remained of Her body collapsed to the ground as though Her skeleton had liquified. Her skin, tissue, and organs began to melt as well, dissolving back into the primordial soup which composed it. Soon all that remained was a single fist-sized lump of still-living flesh. This embryonic mass was the fetal form of the Black Mother, the seed from which She could eventually regrow if given enough time. It hovered in the air between the outstretched hands of Commander Precia Testarossa.

"It is my victory." Precia said. "Now I will consume the Black Mother as I consumed the White, and initiate the Forbidden Union within myself; and in doing so, I will become God. Bear witness, children, to the end of the old world, and the beginning of something entirely new. Something..."

The Commander's eyes, usually so cold and emotionless, were shining with fervor.

"_...glorious_."

The Commander closed her hands around the helpless fetus and raised it towards her open mouth.


	38. Now I Am Become Death

**Chapter 38: Now I Am Become Death, Destroyer Of Worlds**

Makoto and Shigeru stumbled down the dark halls of Central Dogma. The corridor, lit only by red emergency lights, seemed to lurch back and forth like a living thing as it was buffeted by shockwaves from the battles raging above and below

"Alright, if we cut back through the command center, we can reach the maintenance elevator. That's sure to still have power; because otherwise, how would they be able to reach the power generators when they broke?"

The floor lurched beneath their feet, sending them both sprawling, and an ominous rumble echoed up from the depths of the facility.

"God damn it!" Shigeru said, pulling himself back to his feet. "If we survive this, I am going to kill you."

"How was I supposed to know the main elevator would stop working when the power went out?" Makoto said.

"The hundred or so signs saying, _In case of emergency, use stairs_ weren't enough of a hint for you?" Shigeru asked.

"Well, if we were going to take the stairs, we wouldn't have to worry about the attack at all, because we'd die of old age before reaching the surface anyway." Makoto said. "And may I add that we would have made it to the elevators before the power failed like everyone else if you hadn't insisted on going back for your guitar!"

"This thing's vintage, man!" Shigeru said defensively. "Genuine pre-Second Impact. Do you know how few of these are left? How valuable this baby is? It's pretty much my retirement plan now, since I think our pensions just went up in smoke."

There was a distant explosion, a deep rumbling noise, and then a much closer explosion.

"Yeah, well, at this rate it looks like we'll be going up in smoke too." Makoto said.

"Maybe if you had half the pathfinding ability of the average lab rat..." Shigeru began.

"And yet you keep following me." Makoto cut in. "What does that say about your sense of direction?"

Shigeru began preparing a witty retort, one so sharp and piercing that it was certain to leave Makoto utterly speechless, and would surely have thought one up in the next moment or two if Makoto hasn't spoken again.

"There!" Makoto said. "Entrance to the command center. Pass through there, and we'll find the maintenance elevator on the other side."

Makoto and Shigeru entered the Command Center. The room, usually impeccably maintained, had become a disaster area. The large tactical display screens mounted on the walls had cracked and shattered. The three MAGI supercomputers had been reduced to twisted heaps of burnt metal, and there was a strong odor of burning flesh in the air. Most alarming, however, was the body crumpled on walkway in front of them, apparently pitched over the railing of one of the higher platforms. It took a moment for Shigeru to recognize the figure.

"It's old man Fuyutsuki." Shigeru said.

"Is he... alive?" Makoto asked.

Shigeru walked over to the Vice-Commander's crumpled form and checked his vitals.

"He's still breathing." Shigeru said. "But man, he's messed up. Look at his legs — bones were not meant to bend like that."

"We'll have to carry him." Makoto said.

"What?" Shigeru asked.

"Well, he's obviously not walking out of here, and we can't just leave him to die." Makoto said.

"Damn it." Shigeru sighed. "Since when did you get all moral?"

"Well, since the Commander and the Council are all bastards. I figured someone should be the voice of basic human decency." Makoto said.

"It's because Maya took a stand and helped Dr. Akagi when the Commander decided to turn the thumbscrews on her, isn't it?" Shigeru said. "Seeing her take the moral high ground made you think of all the times you followed ethically questionable orders without protest. Now you're trying to redeem yourself through random good deeds. Next thing you know, you'll be donating money to charity and giving away food to orphans."

"Oh, heaven forfend anyone should show charity towards orphans." Makoto said. "You don't receive many compliments about your unbridled compassion and humanitarian spirit, do you?"

"Don't talk to me about humanitarian spirit." Shigeru said. "What I saw of humanity after the Second Impact didn't exactly leave me with a positive opinion of human nature. As far as I'm concerned, the mere fact that I chose to work at NERV and tried to help save the world regardless qualifies me as a saint."

"Good for you." Makoto said. "But unless you want to become the first saint martyred by means of being force-fed his own guitar, you're going to help me save the Vice-Commander now."

"Fine." Shigeru said. "But just so it's clear, this satisfies my quota for good deeds for the next three years."

Another distressing tremor emanated from somewhere deep beneath their feet.

"Well, if you're planning on living for another three years, I suggest you get on with it." Makoto said,

The two bridge bunnies lifted up Fuyutsuki and began carrying his limp body with them towards the exit.

* * *

Clyde's prison cell was dark and cramped. The only light came from a bare bulb on the ceiling; the only furnishings were a toilet and a cot. Clyde lay on the cot, feeling the vibrations emanating from somewhere deep below and running through the foundations of NERV. Third Impact was in progress, then. The only question was how it would go down. Who would unite the Progenitors and claim the power of Adonai: Precia or SEELE? It was a lose-lose situation, to be honest. Neither Precia Testarossa nor Lorenz Keel would be a benevolent overlord if they gained the powers of a god. He wished he could have done more to oppose them; but in the end, he was just one man fighting against a conspiracy that had been scheming and preparing for thousands of years. Empires had risen and fallen while SEELE endured. All he could really hope was that he'd been a good father to the Magical Girls placed under his custody. Hayate, Signum, Shamal, and Vita... even if they had no chance of winning the coming war against whichever god-tyrant would be conquering the world as Adonai, he was at least confident that they would fight on the side of justice. They were all good people, despite what SEELE had tried to turn them into.

The tremors shaking the base had become more violent now. Something cataclysmically destructive was occurring far below Clyde's feet, and the effects were drawing ever closer. The door to his cell was trembling in its frame, and a terrible banging noise coming from directly outside; it seemed like his cell's collapse was imminent. Clyde closed his eyes and waited for the end.

"Idiot!" A voice shouted. "Are you planning on sleeping all day?"

Clyde opened his eyes. His cell door had been flung open, its lock broken, and Major Lindy Harlaown stood silhouetted in the doorway. For the first time in his life, Clyde was speechless.

"Well?" Lindy demanded. "You planning on coming with me? Because I could've been clear by now if I hadn't come back for your dumb ass, and I'm not going to wait around for the ceiling to fall on my head."

Somewhat sheepishly, Clyde got off the cot and walked to the cell door. Lindy was already climbing back into the driver's seat of her car, which she had somehow driven down the detention block corridor. It was such a tight fit that there was no room to open the doors; Lindy had to enter through the car's sunroof. After take a moment to regain his composure, Clyde followed.

"I'm surprised you managed to fit a car in here." Clyde said. "I wouldn't have thought the door was large enough."

"It wasn't." Lindy said. "I made a new one."

"Damn." Clyde said appreciatively. "All this work, just to save little old me?"

"Of course I came back for you, dummy." Lindy said. "You're my fiancé, aren't you?"

"Right." Clyde said. "Obviously what I meant to say was, I never doubted you for a moment."

"And that you'd do the same for me." Lindy prodded.

"Actually, I prefer to think that I would have planned ahead well enough not to cut things quite so close." Clyde said.

"You're welcome, jerk." Lindy said. "But since you mention it, I'd buckle up; it's going to be a bit of a rough ride."

As they buckled their seatbelts, a deep roaring sound arose from Terminal Dogma, growing in intensity with each passing second until the vibration was strong enough to rattle their teeth. It sounded as though hell itself was rising to claim them.

"Time to get gone, I think." Clyde said.

"I concur." Lindy said.

She shifted her car into reverse and then slammed the gas pedal all the way to the floor, causing her vehicle to leap backwards with a screaming protest and the smell of burnt rubber. The car hurtled down NERV's too-narrow hallways, acquiring an entirely new set of dents and scratches overlaying the ones it had acquired on the way in. By the time Lindy backed the car out of the hall — whose entryway had indeed been considerably expanded, apparently through the use of mining explosives used to excavate new rooms in the GeoFront — the floor was fairly bucking beneath their feet from whatever apocalyptic turmoil was rising up from Terminal Dogma.

"Next stop: the surface." Lindy said.

She brought the car around with such violence that one of the damaged rear doors flew off, then shifted into drive and mashed the accelerator as far down as it would go. The car took off screaming up the sloping road that led to the open interior of the GeoFront as the facility began to collapse around them. Lindy drove like a madwoman, manhandling the steering wheel like it was her mortal enemy and wrenching the car into maneuvers that Clyde once would have sworn were physically impossible in order to avoid the cracks that were opening in the floor below them and the chunks of debris that were falling from above. Finally, just as Clyde was becoming certain that they would be entombed in rubble, the shine of daylight appeared in front of them. The beleaguered car emerged from the underground tunnel and lurched to a stop in sight of the black pyramid of Central Dogma.

A moment later, the pyramid exploded. The ground beneath it heaved and broke apart as a titanic figure rose up from the depths of the Earth: Lilith, the Black Mother. For a moment, the enormous figure seemed to tower over the cratered GeoFront like a divine being. Then Her body broke apart into bloody chunks, torn asunder by the brilliant magic of Commander Precia Testarossa. She floated high in the air, above the blood and gore of Lilith's crumbling body, wreathed in godly power. Looking both majestic and terrible, she lifted from the ruined remains of the Progenitor's body Her core, the embryo-like seed from which She could eventually regenerate; and made to swallow it whole.

* * *

The Council was in an uproar.

"That woman is consuming the Black Mother!" SEELE 06 bellowed.

"She would steal what we have worked for thousands of years to obtain!" SEELE 05 said.

"We must not let her take what is rightfully ours!" SEELE 02 said.

"Silence, all of you." Keel commanded in a tone that brooked no dissent. "I am receiving updates on the status of the Arc-En-Ciel."

The Chairman had linked the cybernetic implants in his body to the satellite feed to the MAGI computed on Weapons Platform _Asura_. At first, there had only been disturbing silence. But now, data was starting to trickle in as the damaged systems rebooted.

"...The Arc-En-Ciel is back online at 10% capacity." Keel finally reported.

"Then delay not!" SEELE 03 shouted. "Rain hellfire and damnation upon the head of the usurper!"

"Firing sequence has been initiated." Keel said. "Our will be done."

"Our will be done." the other Council members echoed.

* * *

Precia clutched the embryonic form of Lilith tightly in her left hand, slowly raising the helpless seed of the Black Mother towards her open mouth. Just when it looked like she was about to bite down, however, she paused. The sky above her had come alive with multicolored lights, concentric auroras spreading out like ripples in a pond.

"Arc-En-Ciel." Precia said in a matter-of-fact tone. "So Shamal and Vita were unreliable after all."

Keeping a tight grip on Lilith's embryo, Precia lowered her left hand and raised her right hand above her head. Pinpoints of brilliant white light flared in the depths of her pupils, and purple lightning fathered in her outstretched palm. A moment later, the sky split apart as the beam of magical energy fired from the Arc-En-Ciel feel like a blazing spear from the heavens. The pillar of destroying light struck her hand and scattered like a stream of water against a stone surface. Precia floated immobile in the air, not budging an inch beneath the continuing onslaught of power, holding back enough destructive energy to level a city with only a single hand.

"Futile!" Precia shouted at the sky. "No mere Angel has magic capable of opposing the White Mother — not even your precious Arc-En-Ciel!"

Damaged by Vita's earlier attack, the Arc-En-Ciel was unable sustain continuous fire for long. Even though it was being fired at only 10% of its full capacity, the few systems that remained online were still unable to handle the load for long. The over-stressed weapons platform began to overheat, and was forced to once more shut down or else risk total destruction. However, despite its short duration and inability to penetrate Precia's defenses, the shot was not entirely in vain. As Precia hung motionlessly in the air, all of her attention concentrated on the weapon's fading beam, a shout rang out from one of the Magical Girls around her:

"Blitz Rush!"

With speed too great to be followed by the human eye, Fate snatched the embryonic Lilith from Precia's lowered hand. Precia waited a few moments, until the last vestiges of the Arc-En-Ciel's assault had faded away, then turned to face her daughter.

"You would defy me, Fate?" Precia asked coldly.

"...Yes, Mother." Fate said, her eyes downcast. "I would. And I do."

"You are not my daughter." Precia said. "Disappear, wretched doll!"

A bolt of purple plasma burst from her extended hand and hurtled towards Fate, Fate barely managed to raise a defensive barrier in time, and the force of the blast still sent her somersaulting backwards through the air.

In response, the other Magical Girls began preparing attacks of their own. Hayate spread her hands over the book of Reinforce, the pages of which began flipping on their own as a magic sigil inscribed itself under her wheelchair.

"Diabolic..." she began.

"Silence, stupid girl." Precia said.

She flung a spell at Hayate that appeared to consist of a web composed of lightning. Confined as she was to her wheelchair, there was no hope of dodging; and she was already much too far into the incantation of Diabolic Emission to be able to cancel it and raise a barrier instead. Her only choice was to take the attack head-on. The web of purple energy enveloped Hayate and her wheelchair, but it didn't burn. Instead, the bands of purple magic tightened around her. Her eyes and mouth were covered, and her hands were bound in place. There was no way for her to make use of her Device and cast spells.

"Divine Shooter!" Nanoha called.

A volley of pink energy balls hurtled towards the Commander. With a contemptuous look, Precia made a sweeping arm gesture, and all of the projectiles exploded mid-air.

"Swallow Flier!" Vita shouted.

A swing of Graf Eisen sent a sphere of crackling orange offensive magic blasting towards Precia. Precia extended her left hand, wreathed in an aura of crackling plasma, and caught the ball. She then slowly tightened her hand into a fist, her purple magic steadily overwhelming the orange until finally the attack shattered into a cloud of hazy sparks.

"Futile." Precia said. "The power of your Devices is nothing against the White Mother. Your resistance is nought but the tantrum of insolent children before a disciplining parent."

"Suck vacuum, jerk!" Shamal retorted.

Klarer Wind flashed brightly on her finger; but after a moment, the portal she was attempting to open between Precia's throat and outer space curled in on itself and vanished.

"I said futile!" Precia roared. "Why do you think no Angels teleported directly to Terminal Dogma, bypassing NERV's defenses? The aura of light cast by theWhite Mother is a sacred space into which no one may intrude! It seems you have not been paying attention — and disrespectful children must be properly chastised!"

Precia clenched her right hand, and her Device materialized. It was a long whip, composed of purple lightning. She swung it fiercely; and although Shamal raised a shield, it tore effortlessly through both her magic defense and her Barrier Jacket to carve a diagonal gash across her chest. Shamal's flight spell faltered, and she fell from the sky.

"Take this, bitch!" Vita screamed. "Rocket Hammer!"

Graf Eisen propelled her towards Precia, a drill of whirling offensive magic at its front and a blazing rocket engine at its back. Precia sneered and swung around her whip. The end wrapped around one of Vita's ankles, interrupting her charge; Precia then swung the whip about, swinging Vita around in a wide circle at high velocity before releasing her. Tumbling out of control, she plowed into the ground amidst a cloud of dust and debris.

"Photon Lancer — Phalanx Shift!" Fate cried.

Precia raised her left hand, and purple lightning leapt from her fingers to intercept and annihilate the incoming bullets of yellow magic.

"So you still yearn for the taste of the lash!" Precia spat.

She swung her whip around, sending it flying at Fate. Encumbered by carrying the Black Mother, Fate didn't have the maneuverability to dodge, and the crackling whip would rip through any defensive barrier she raised as easily as tissue paper.

"Barrel Shot!" Nanoha called.

A pink magic circle appeared around the tip of the whip and tightened, fixing it immobile in the air.

"Never again, Mother." Fate said. "I won't allow you to have that power over me any more. Zanbar Form — Riot Blade!"

The brilliant yellow blade slashed through Precia's whip with ease. The length of purple lightning split apart and crumbled into motes of light.

"Worthless!" Precia spat. "You are nothing but a worthless piece of trash, a fake, an imposter, an imitation, scum, garbage, refuse, nothing, nothing, NOTHING!"

Releasing her damaged Device, she flung out her hands and spewed a cloud of luminous purple plasma at Fate. Fate raised a spherical shield around herself as the burning energy engulfed her.

"Hey!" Vita shouted. "You haven't forgotten about me, have you? Comet Flier!"

Standing in the crater caused by her impact with the ground, Vita swung Graf Eisen and struck a ball of flaming orange energy the size of a double-decker bus towards Precia. The Commander was forced to break off her assault on Fate in order to raise a shield. The massive orange sphere slammed against the barrier and ground to a halt, unable to breach it.

"Futi—" Precia began to shout, but was cut off.

"Divine Buster!" Nanoha called.

The beam of brilliant pink energy plowed into Vita's ball of offensive magic, causing both spells to detonate. Precia was engulfed in a massive conflagration. A moment later, however, a shockwave of magic pulsed from her body and blew apart the raging firestorm.

"Futile, futile, futile!" Precia raved. "How long will it take to penetrate your thick skulls There is nothing —"

"Strum Falche!"

An arrow of deep crimson magic slammed into Precia's chest and exploded with even greater force than the previous attacks. Precia was once again enveloped in a fiery maelstrom of magical power; and this time, she hadn't had time to raise a barrier. When the smoke and flame cleared, her Barrier Jacket was scratched and torn.

"How?" she demanded. "How could you possibly...?"

On the ground far below her, Signum stood defiant, the bow form of Laevatein clenched in her hands. Shamal stood directly behind her, hands against her back, pouring magical energy into her body. Since her own techniques were worthless against Precia, she was transferring all her energy to Signum, giving the nearly-exhausted warrior enough strength to participate in the fight.

"Perish!" Precia roared.

Lightning leapt down from her hands, battering the two Magical Girls. However, she wasn't able to sustain the attack for long before once more being forced onto the defensive.

"Divine Buster!"

Precia raised one hand, intercepting Nanoha's pink beam with the dense purple energy gathered in her palm.

"Thunder Smasher!"

Precia extended her other hand to block the yellow beam fired by Fate.

"Deadly Punishment!"

Precia hadn't seen Vita flying up behind her; by the time she shouted her attack, it was too late for the Commander to dodge. Vita swung down Graf Eisen, striking a solid blow against the back of the Commander's head. Precia's eyes crossed, and her magic flickered unstably for a moment as her concentration wavered. It was only for a moment, but it was enough to disrupt the spell she'd cast on Hayate. The ensnaring web of purple bindings melted away, and Hayate immediately launched into an incantation.

"Atem des Eises!" Hayate shouted.

Vita quickly retreated to a safe distance as cubes of blue magic began exploding into freezing clouds around Precia. Although they filled the air around her, none of the icy blasts actually struck Precia. The Commander sneered in contempt at Hayate's aim. It was only when she saw that the sky was once again alive with scintillating auroras that she realized that Hayate had not been trying to hit her, but to get her to stand still long enough for Weapons Platform _Asura_ to get a lock on her; and by then it was too late. The blinding rainbow-colored beam of the Arc-En-Ciel fell upon her like a divine judgement. The damaged weapon was only able to sustain the beam for a couple seconds before it once more malfunctioned and the pillar of light faded; however, that was enough time to send Precia hurtling downwards into the very pit she'd made when breaking upwards from Terminal Dogma with Lilith. A moment later, a great explosion roared back up the shaft.

"Did that do it?" Nanoha asked.

Shamal shook her head.

"I still can't open a portal." she said. "She's still alive down there, and she's probably coming back up. Get ready."

Preica rose from the flaming pit like a vengeful demon from the fiery maw of hell. Her Barrier Jacket was shredded and burnt, and her expression has lost all trace of composure. Now her face was a warped display of naked fury. As soon as she came into view, the Magical Girls released the attacks they'd been charging.

"Starlight Breaker!" called Nanoha.

"Trident Smasher!" called Fate.

"Hraesvelgr!" called Hayate.

"Sturm Falche!" called Signum.

"Comet Flier!" called Vita.

A veritable tsunami of magical energy roared towards Precia. The Commander flung our both of her arms in front of her, raising a thick barrier that somehow managed to bear the combined force of all of the attacks.

"My! Power! Is! Greater!" Precia screamed.

White lights blazed like stars in her eyes as she mustered her strength. The aura of purple magic surrounding her pulsed and thickened. Then, slowly, impossibly, her power began to push back the numerous attacks battering her. Nanoha's rainbow-colored beam, Fate's three yellow beams, Hayate's three white beams, Signum's red arrow, Vita's orange sphere; all were repelled by the enormous expanding sphere of purple magic surrounding Precia.

At the center of the sphere, Precia's body was clearly being put under immense strain by her efforts. Precia's veins pulsed with white light, making them stand out like a web of lightning bolts beneath her skin. Adam burned within her chest, glowing with such intensity that Her magical light could be seen through the Commander's flesh and ribs.

"She's pushing herself too hard." Hayate said. "She's going to awaken Adam."

"What?" Nanoha said.

"The power coming off of her... it's like when Reinforce was waking up." Hayate said. "She's losing control."

Adam's brilliance continued to grow, until Precia was visible only as a shining white figure at the center of the immense ball of purple plasma she'd generated around herself. Angels had to be lobotomized when they were converted into Intelligent Devices in order for the Magical Girl who bonded with them to control them. Precia had forced Dr. Akagi to perform this process on Adam, damaging the White Mother's Core so that Precia would be able to control Her unrivaled magical power. However, Adam was no mere Angel; She was a Progenitor, a being of a higher order. Adam did not need another Angel to help Her repair Her Core, as Iruel had done to Bardiel; She was capable of regenerating the damage on Her own.

In an instant, the color of the plasma changed from royal purple to crimson red. It crystallized around the Commander, trapping her like an insect in amber. Adam's Core. The crystal sphere began to throb with power like a beating heart, and an aura of magic far greater than anything Precia had ever been capable of summoning began to surround it. The magic energy burned such a brilliant white that it was too painful to look at directly. Only through the corners of their eyes could the Magical Girls see the magic energy taking on a vaguely humanoid shape. A giant of light, towering kilometers high over them like a living mountain. Four wings, spreading out towards the four corners of the world, as if to envelop the sky. A pair of gigantic green eyes, staring down at them as though they were mere ants before a superior being — a not entirely incorrect assessment. For all their might, they were in the end but Lilim wielding the power of enslaved Angels. Whereas She was something on an altogether different level. A higher existence. A God.

The White Progenitor.

Mother of all Angels.

Adam.


	39. Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani

**Chapter 39: Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani**

The GeoFront was bathed in divine white light.

She towered over the blasted battlefield, a god made manifest on Earth. Adam, the White Mother, from whose womb all Angels had sprung. A massive humanoid, Her body composed of unbearably brilliant light save for Her green eyes and the red crystal Core in Her chest, with four wings that blotted out the sky from horizon to horizon. A being whose infinite magical energy could be sensed by every living thing on Earth. All across the planet, people turned towards the unnaturally lit horizon and fell to their knees in awe.

However, mighty as She was, Adam was not a perfect being. She was incomplete. There was something She wanted, something She desperately needed, an obsession that filled Her vast and incomprehensible mind. She sought physical incarnation, a body of living flesh that could experience the world in a way that Her current form constructed of malleable an impermanent energy could not. The foolish human Precia Testarossa had sought to subjugate Adam, to bind Her within her frail mortal form, but such a thing was impossible. A Progenitor was a being on entirely different scale from humans; the Commander could no more contain Adam's Core within her than an amoeba could swallow an elephant. To achieve the Forbidden Union she so desperately desired, Adam would need to fuse with another Progenitor; a being equal and opposite to Herself. And, by sheer cosmic chance, such a being had landed on this world. For all the damage caused by the First Impact four and a half billion years ago — Adam being reduced to embryonic form, Her Angelic children being ripped prematurely from her womb, the usurpation of the planet by a terrestrial ecosystem — was worth it for the chance to achieve completion.

Adam slowly turned Her head down to look at the greater crater of the exposed GeoFront. At the Magical Girls who floated in the air within it. At the thing Fate Testarossa held in trembling hands — the embryonic Lilith. Black Progenitor, Mother of Lilim, object of Her desire. There was nothing standing against Her save a few Magical Girls — and to a being of Her power, they were nothing at all.

Adam began to extend one of Her hands, reaching for Lilith and the consummation of their Forbidden Union.

* * *

For the Magical Girls, it was as though the sky was falling. Adam's outstretched hand was a wall of solid magical energy, descending towards them. Their first reaction was to flee; but where was there to go? Though the roof of the GeoFront had been blown open, Adam's massive body now blocked that path. The Magical Girls were trapped in the remains of the dome like insects in an overturned cup. The girls regrouped at ground level, the outstretched hand of Adam slowly but unstoppable closing in on them.

"Should we fly down the pit?" Fate asked, a trace of panic in her voice. "Terminal Dogma is another two kilometers down."

"But where could we go from there?" Vita asked. "We'd just be bottled in even more tightly than we already are."

"If we are going to fight, we should make our stand here." Signum said. "Where we can all bring our maximum force to bear."

"We are going to fight." Nanoha affirmed. "Don't give up, Fate. No matter how hopeless things may seem, we'll find a way to save the world. We're Magical Girls; it's what we do."

Fate closed her eyes for a moment, then nodded.

"I believe in you." she said. "Even though I know this battle is hopeless, my heart is telling me to fight by your side until the very end."

Fate handed the embryonic Lilith to Hayate, then grasped Bardiche with both hands.

"No matter what happens, Nanoha, I just want you to know... that I..." Fate wavered for a moment, then gathered her courage and shouted: "I love you! I'm in love with you, Nanoha! I LOVE YOU!"

Nanoha smiled and placed one hand on Fate's cheek.

"I love you too, Fate." she said.

With the hand of Adam falling from heaven as though to crush the Magical Girls like insignificant bugs, Nanoha and Fate shared a long, deep kiss. After it ended, Nanoha turned to the other Magical Girls.

"Let's show Adam just how we Magical Girls welcome the arrival of an Angel!" Nanoha shouted. "Hit Her with everything you've got!"

Bright auras flared about the girls as they summoned all the magic they had left available to them. Nanoha, Fate, Signum, Shamal, Hayate, and Vita. Six girls, wielding the harnessed magic of six Angels: Abaddon, Baraqiel, Kerub, Mbriel, Bardiel, and Adririon. It was an impossible fight. Humans and Angels: both were lesser beings, incapable of opposing a Progenitor. But even so, for the sake of all the world, they had to try. That was their duty as Magical Girls.

"Barrel Shot!" Nanoha shouted.

An enormous pink magic circle inscribed itself in the air, then contracted around the wrist of Adam's outstretched hand like a manacle. Nanoha focused all her strength into the magic circle, trying to bind Adam's hand in place and prevent it from drawing any closer to them. However, she may as well have been trying to restrain the White Mother with tissue paper. Adam's movement never faltered for a moment, and Nanoha's magic circle almost immediately shattered into glittering fragments in the face of the Giant of Light's inexorable forward motion.

"Diabolic Emission!" Hayate shouted.

A sphere of dark and seething energy began expanding in front of Adam's hand. Anything that entered that violent maelstrom of churning destructive magic would surely be annihilated. It was one of Hayate's most feared spells, and would give any other opponent pause. But Adam didn't even seem to notice it. Her hand continued to press forwards, and Hayate's dark magic seemed to shrink before the brilliant light radiating from Adam's palm. When Adam's hand actually touched it, the whirling ball of energy broke apart and disintegrated like a cloud in high wind. And Adam continued reaching down towards them, as though they were nothing more than annoying insects to be crushed with a simple swat of Her hand.

"Don't forget your training." Signum said. "If you want to destroy an Angel, you have to hit its weak point! Sturm Falche!"

A blazing red arrow of energy sprung forth from Laevatein's bow form and streaked through the air. It flew past Adam's outstretched arm, instead following an arcing trajectory towards Her chest. The flaming projectile struck the center of Adam's Core and exploded, unleashing an inferno of magic that swept across Adam's chest. After only a few moments, however, the flames died down, and the unmarred surface of Adam's Core came into view once more.

"No good." Signum said. "I'm exhausted. I just don't have enough power left to damage it."

"Leave it to me." Nanoha said. "Maximum Power — Absolute Destruction!"

A crackling aura of magic energy built around Nanoha, and a magic circle inscribed itself under her feet as she summoned all of her strength. Raising Heart vibrated with pent-up power as Nanoha pointed it at Adam's Core.

"Starlight Breaker!"

A massive beam of rainbow-colored energy blazed forth from the tip of Nanoha's staff. He torrent of offensive magic pounded against the hard crystal surface of Adam's Core, and the glowing crystal refused to yield. Nanoha's power broke against the White Mother's Core like waves against a stone; beams of errant magic reflected off the Core and sprayed outwards in a beautiful but ineffectual kaleidoscopic display.

"Can you narrow your beam?" Signum asked. "If you could focus it on a single point, it might be enough."

"Trying..." Nanoha said through gritted teeth. "But this much power... is hard to control..."

The beam of Starlight Breaker narrowed slightly, but it was still nearly as wide across as Adam's Core. The energy was being spread out across the entire surface of the Core; and thus diluted, it wasn't able to penetrate. The beam wavered as Nanoha's strength faltered, then broke apart into a cloud of multicolored sparks.

"Adam's Core is way tougher than a normal Angel's." Nanoha said. "I don't think our ordinary attacks are going to do anything to it unless we can create some kind of weak point."

"Leave it to me." Fate said. "Riot Blade!"

Bardiche transformed from a scythe to a sword, generating a blade of brilliant yellow light. Fate activated her flight spell, accelerating at high speed to pass through the fingers of Adam's descending hand and ascend to the height of Her Core. Gripping Bardiche with both hands, she swung the sword down with all her strength. The buzzing blade of energy raised a fantastic spray of sparks as it ground against the red crystal, but failed to cut through the surface. Adam's Core did indeed seem to be made of far sterner material than those of Her Angelic children. But even so, Fate refused to give up. She couldn't fail; not when Nanoha was counting on her. Having already put all her physical strength into the attack, she began pouring in more of her magic, causing the blade of energy to grow larger and shine brighter. Bolts of lightning crackled from the point where the edge of the sword was driven against the hard crystal. And slowly, so slowly, the crystal began to give away before Fate's unrelenting assault. The flashing, vibrating blade began to sink down into Adam's Core, slicing a gouge into the formerly perfectly smooth surface.

With this minor success in the attack on Her Core, Adam seemed to finally take notice of Fate. Based on the slow, almost glacial speed at which the Giant of Light was lowering Her hand towards Lilith, Fate figured it would be an easy matter to dodge any physical attack that might be made against her. Her true concern was a magical attack; the energy available to the White Mother clearly far surpassed any of the Magical Girls, and Fate couldn't even imagine what kind of destructive energy She might unleash against them. To her surprise, however, Adam's reaction was defensive. Adam's Core abruptly sank into her body, disappearing as seamlessly into the white energy composing Her chest as a ship sinking beneath the surface of the sea. The crystal sphere passed entirely through Adam's chest and re-emerged from Her back, at the center of Her four sky-spanning wings, where none of the Magical Girls' attacks would be able to reach it. Other than that, Adam didn't so much as lift a finger or send a spark of magic Fate's way. It seemed the White Mother didn't even consider the Magical Girls worth the time or energy it would to take to fight them; not when Lilith was so nearly within Her grasp.

"It's no good!" Fate called down to the other Magical Girls. "She's moved Her Core; I can't reach it anymore!"

"We can't give up yet!" Vita said. "Maybe She has other weak points. Destruction Hammer!"

Vita's hammer Graf Eisen flared with orange magic. The head grew to enormous size, then the handle began to rapidly extend. The head shot upwards like a rocket, between Adam's fingers, past Fate hovering in front of Adam's chest, aiming towards the one feature Vita could see that looked more vulnerable than the impervious mass of white magic composing Adam's body: the two great green eyes staring down at them. The hammer plowed directly into Adam's left eye, smashing into it with unspeakable force. The eye was pulverized in an instant, sending a torrent of blue blood spraying from the socket; it fell down like rain upon the Magical Girls far below. However, despite the apparently horrific damage that had been inflicted on Her face, Adam showed no sign of pain or hesitation. Her eyes might not be indestructible, but only damage to Her Core could truly kill Her; anything else could simply be regenerated at Her leisure. Furthermore, not even blinding Her would prevent Her from finding Lilith; She could feel Lilith's heartbeat as clearly as the pulsing of Her own Core. The two Progenitors were drawn to each other like magnets, and they were much too close now for anything to come between them. Vita's attack, though visually impressive, was as futile as anything else the Magical Girls had attempted. Nothing would prevent Adam and Lilith's Forbidden Union.

Adam's fingers struck the ground, forming a cage around the Magical Girls, and She began to slowly close Her hand. Some of the Magical Girls could still have used their flight spells to escape between Her closing fingers; however, Signum's magic was exhausted and Hayate didn't seem capable of flying without control of her legs. Rather than abandon their friends, the other Magical Girls chose to stand beside them as Adam's hand closed around them. Even Fate, who had flown clear of Adam's grasp in order to attack Her Core, now flew back through the rapidly closing gaps between Her fingers in order to rejoin the others. Whatever Nanoha's fate, she would share it.

"Panzer Schild." Shamal intoned.

A magic circle inscribed itself beneath the embryonic Lilith, and a dome of green light enclosed it. The feeble glow was nothing against the terrible brilliance cast by Adam, and Shamal understood that her shield would be crushed by the White Mother's hand as easily as a Styrofoam cup beneath a descending boot; but with her portal powers blocked, that simple spell was all she could do. It was her last act of defiance in the face of the end of the world.

The Magical Girls huddled tight and awaited the end.

* * *

"What is the status of the Arc-En-Ciel!?" SEELE 02 demanded.

"The damage is too extensive." Keel said. "It will not be able to fire again."

"We have to stop the White Mother!" SEELE 06 said. "Instrumentality requires that both Progenitors be in their fully developed states when the Forbidden Union is initiated. An incomplete fusion will not be capable of satisfying our desires."

"Indeed!" SEELE 05 said. "There can be no compromise! We have labored on this project for far too long to settle for anything less than perfection!"

"It's too late." SEELE 04 said. "Lilith is already within Adam's grasp. All hope is lost."

"One option still remains to us." Keel said. "I hereby move to initiate the Samael Protocol."

"Agreed." SEELE 05 said immediately. "We can always create another Arc-En-Ciel... but there is only one White Mother."

"Agreed." SEELE 03 said a moment later. "We will show the White Mother that even She must bow before the might of our fury.

"Agreed." SEELE 04 said. "If we are fortunate, the execution of the Protocol will reduce both Progenitors back to their fetal forms. We will then have plenty of time to arrange new methods of controlling them while waiting for them to grow back into their true forms. And this time, without Precia getting in our way, there will be nothing to prevent us from achieving the Instrumentality we desire."

"But what about the Magical Girls?" SEELE 02 asked. "If we defeat Adam for them, both Progenitors will fall into their hands!"

"And what do you expect them to do about it?" Keel asked. "They're only children. Little girls. They can run to the ends of the Earth if they want; there's nowhere they can go that we won't be able to find them. I'm sure Dr. Scaglietti will be able to provide us with the means to defeat them — once we've properly disciplined him for his betrayal, of course. The Progenitors will return to us in the end. And then we will become like unto gods."

"...But what if they decide to destroy the Progenitors?" SEELE 02 asked.

"Absurd!" SEELE 07 said. "There is no one who does not lust to have dominion over gods! No one who has had the embryonic Progenitors within their sight would cast them away."

"Impossible!" SEELE 06 said. "There is no one who does hunger for the infinite power and infinite knowledge of Adam and Lilith. No one who knows the true nature of the Progenitors would give them up.

"Inconceivable!" SEELE 05 said. "There is no one who does not desire the eternal life that may be gained from the completion of Instrumentality. No one who understands what is to be gained from the Adonai would prevent its advent."

"Doubtful." SEELE 04 said. "I don't think those children have the fortitude to resolve themselves to destroy such divine beings."

"Outrageous!" SEELE 03 said. "There is no one would have the insolence to destroy the very seeds of all life on this world! They would face the wrath of all creation!"

"The motion passes." Keel said. "By this Council's authority, the Samael Protocol is hereby initiated. We, who have harnessed the secret of life, technology, and magic; we, who have clutched all the world's nations in the palm of our hand; we, who have placed swords in the sky and imprisoned Angels within human flesh, command a power that surpasses even God! Let the world bear witness! This is the moment of our triumph! Fall, Samael!"

* * *

A falling star streaked through the sky.

At first, its light was negligible compared to the brilliant white radiance that shone from Adam's skin. However, with each passing second, it grew closer and its fiery light became brighter. And it soon became clear that the blazing aura surrounding it was not merely flames from the friction of entry into the atmosphere. It was wreathed in all the colors of the rainbow, an aura of pulsing magic that grew larger with each passing second. And it was then that the Magical Girls realized what they were witnessing.

They beheld the Arc-En-Ciel as it fell from heaven like lightning.

Weapons Platform _Asura_ plummeted through the atmosphere, becoming a flaming spear aimed at Adam's back. And in the machine's core, the Intelligent Device created from the Angel Samael summoned unfathomable magic power. It was far more energy than the wrecked systems of the Arc-En-Ciel could hope to safely contain — but containment was no longer the desired goal. The Arc-En-Ciel had become a magical warhead of incalculable yield, dropped from orbit onto the White Mother. It struck Adam between the wings, and exploded.

The area was engulfed by a light brighter than the sun. It was a destroying light that not even Adam, Mother of Angels, could fully withstand. Caught in the center of the magical conflagration, Her body began to slowly crumble. First were Her four enormous wings, which began to flake away, as though being plucked feather by feather. Then Her flesh began to liquify, Her radiant white skin melting into a blue ooze. Her massive form sagged and lost definition, coming to resemble a half-melted snowman. Then She broke apart entirely, dissolving into countless chunks of bloody meat that burned in the inferno of the Arc-En-Ciel's detonation. By the time the cataclysmic light had faded, only Adam's Core remained; a shining red sphere floating above the ravaged landscape.

But not even this would be enough to stop the White Mother. Her body was merely a projection of Her magic; she could easily conjure another one. Already, streams of white light were beginning to grow from Her Core; soon they would once again form into Adam's impervious skin and shield her Core from all harm. The Magical Girls had only one chance to make a final attempt at striking down the White Mother.

"Barrel Shot!"

"Lightning Bind!"

Nanoha and Fate shouted out their binding spells, and two large magic circles composed of pink and yellow energy appeared around the floating Core. They pushed back the building white energy, keeping the surface of the crystal exposed. However, it was clear from the way the brilliant magic strained at its bonds that they wouldn't be able to hold it back for long. There was only time for a single attack; then Adam would break free, and nothing would be able to oppose Her ever again.

"RAGNAROK!" Hayate shouted.

The book in her lap, the Device Reinforce, blazed with unearthly light as Hayate drew on all her power. Remembering the power that had seemed to overflow from her body when the Angel Bardiel had awakened, Hayate pushed herself to the very limit. Power exploded from her frail body like a hurricane. There beams of magical energy, each as strong as a Starlight Breaker, fired at Adam's Core. They all converged towards one point: the gouge in the surface created by Fate's Riot Blade.

Hayate's magic pounded at that imperfection, that one flaw in the seemingly indestructible red crystal, and began to slowly eat into the interior of Adam's Core. Bands of darkness spread like ink beneath the shining surface as the spell broke through Adam's defenses. Brilliant flashes of light illuminated the sphere from within as Adam tried to neutralize Hayate's magic. And perhaps, had Adam been at full strength, Hayate would have failed. But Adam had been weakened — She had been cut into by Dr. Akagi in an attempt to make Her more controllable, consumed by Commander Testrarossa in an attempt to steal Her power, and struck by the Arc-En-Ciel in an attempt to reduce Her back to a more manageable form — and as a result, Hayate's darkness overwhelmed Her light.

Cracks expanded from the beams' impact point and spread through the entirety of Adam's Core. The smooth crystalline surface lost its shine, fading from brilliant crimson to a dull, dead grayish-red. Adam's white energy, which had built to the point of bursting free from Nanoha and Fate's binding circles, wavered and faded. Then, slowly, the crystal began to crumble. Great chunks sloughed off and fell to the ground, then disintegrated into a fine dark ash. Finally, the central portion of the Core broke apart, and the body of Precia Testarossa fell tumbling to the ground. She lay sprawled amongst the ashen remains of Adam's Core.

Unsure whether the Commander was dead or alive, the Magical Girls slowly approached her prone form. As they gathered around her, Precia's body shuddered. Her ribs creaked as something pounded against the inside of her chest. Then there was a loud crack as her sternum broke, and the embryo of Adam tore itself free from her body.

The White Mother, who only moments ago had seemed a force more powerful than any other in the world, was now a small and wretched thing. As Precia died, it was able to separate itself from her and regain its independence; but the trauma it had endured had reduced it to its embryonic form. It resembled a half-formed fetus as it dragged itself from the Commander's body, trailing blood as it slowly crawled across the ground. The Mother of Angels had gone from a Giant of Light that towered over the world to something that looked like it might die of exposure at any moment. But still, pitiful as it was, it still had not lost sight of its goal. It dragged itself, inch by painful inch, towards the embryonic Lilith being held by Hayate.

"We all know it." Shamal said wearily. "What we have to do. As long as Adam and Lilith exist, SEELE will try to use them to achieve Instrumentality."

Signum nodded grimly.

"We have to end it, while we can." Signum said. "While they're both vulnerable."

There were a few moments of silence as the Magical Girls watched Adam crawl feebly across the ground, its stubby arms futilely reaching out towards the object of its desire.

"I'll do it." Signum finally said.

She placed one hand on the hilt of her sword and stepped forwards, but Nanoha stopped her by grabbing her arm.

"I'm tired of using my magic this way." Nanoha said. "Tired of doing nothing but hurt and harm. This wonderful power... wasn't meant to be used to kill."

Signum said nothing, but let go of her sword.

"The Instrumentality that SEELE wanted... required both Progenitors being in their true forms when they joined." Nanoha continued. "Once the Forbidden Union is carried out, it can never be undone. So if we let them join when they're like this, they'll be useless for the Council's plan. So let's just give them what they want. And then it'll be over, for good."

Fate took the fetal Lilith from Hayate and placed it on the ground in front of the fetal Adam. The two embryonic Progenitors crawled towards each other, then embraced and began to fuse. The magic of Adam and the flesh of Lilith, joining together to create a complete being. Had they both been in their true forms, it would have been the birth of a new god, Adonai. But with both in such reduced states, the final product of their merge was no larger than an infant. The long-awaited Forbidden Union had come to nothing, and all SEELE's millennia-long machinations were ruined.

A chocking sound drew the Magical Girls' attention. When Adam had separated itself from Precia and broken free from her body, they had assumed the Commander dead. But now her form was weakly stirring, suggesting there was still some life in her after all. However, it was clear that she wouldn't last much longer. Her limbs had been broken by her fall from the air, her chest had been ruptured by Adam's violent escape, and blood bubbled from her mouth with each breath. Commander Precia Testarossa was dying.

"Alicia..." Precia's voice was a hoarse whisper. "Where are you... Alicia..."

The Magical Girls looked at the dying Commander with varying degrees of contempt and pity.

"Alicia... Where are you... I can't see you..." Precia said. "Come back to me, Alicia... I'm sorry... Please forgive me... Don't leave me all alone... I can't live without you, Alicia..."

Fate walked over to Precia's side. The Commander's eyes looked cloudy and were unable to focus on her, so Fate knelt down beside her and clasped one of her hands.

"I'm here, mama." Fate said.

"Alicia... I thought I'd lost you..." Precia said. "But I did it... I brought you back..."

"That's right, mama." Fate said. "I've come back. We're together again."

"Yes..." Precia said. "Together again... I promise... I'll never lose sight of you... again... Dearest Alicia... My daughter..."

Precia's hand slackened in Fate's grasp. The Commander exhaled, and did not breathe again. Fate placed one hand over Precia's face and closed her eyelids.

"Goodbye... mother." she said.

Nanoha walked over to Fate and placed a hand on her shoulder. Fate turned around, and Nanoha saw that there were tears in her eyes. Fate embraced Nanoha, clinging to her like a life raft, and Nanoha patted her on the back.

"Everything's going to be okay." Nanoha assured her. "It's over now. We've won. Everything is going to be okay."

"...You think's it's really over?" Hayate asked.

"There will be no further Angels." Signum said. "NERV has been destroyed. SEELE still exists, but they have lost their Evangels and the Arc-En-Ciel — and Instrumentality is now impossible. I think... it really is over."

"Then what's going to happen now?" Hayate asked.

"I don't know." Signum admitted.

"We'll be alright." Shamal assured her.

"Don't worry about a thing." Vita told Hayate. "I'll stick by your side no matter what."

"That's right." Shamal said. "The six of us are practically family now. No matter what's to come, we can get through it together."

"Things will probably be bad for a time." Signum warned. "Humanity united in the face of the common threat posed by the Angels. Now that they're all gone, there will likely be infighting amongst nations seeking to regain power and sovereignty. The UN may dissolve. There may even be another world war."

"We won't let that happen." Hayate said firmly.

"It won't be a problem." Vita said. "Whatever we wanna do, there'll be nobody who can stop us. After all... we're Magical Girls. There's no longer any power in the world greater than ours."


	40. God Is In His Heaven And All Is Right

**Final Chapter: God Is In His Heaven And All Is Right With The World**

It had been ten years since the end of what was now known as the Angel War.

The world had changed a great deal since those days. To the surprise of no one, the UN had collapsed almost immediately after the War's conclusion. It had only ever been able to gain so much power in the first place for two reasons: because humanity had been united in fear by the threat of utter extinction at the hands of the Angels, and because the ceaseless shadowy political manipulations of SEELE eliminated all who dissented. With the Angels defeated and SEELE shattered, the member states wasted no time in withdrawing from the union and declaring their sovereignty. The UN army dissolved, its various constituent units declaring their loyalty to the countries that had originally provided them. Conflicts flared up all over the world as countries that had been chafing under what they regarded as unjust UN laws and decisions sought to claim by force territory and resources that they believed should have been theirs all along.

However, no sooner had the UN collapsed than a new organization rose to fill the vacuum. The Territories and Sovereignties Administration Bureau laid down the new law. They permitted the various nations of the world a far greater degree of self-governance than they'd had under the reign of the UN, but they would not tolerate any wars. Any dispute between nations must be brought to them for arbitration. Those who attempted to defy their decree and make war found themselves opposed by an insurmountable force. Artillery shells exploded against impenetrable glowing barriers; missiles were swallowed by green portals and vanished; spears of light fell from the sky to destroy tanks and battleships with pinpoint precision; and any leader who issued a declaration of war found quickly themselves in a TSAB cell facing charges of attempted crimes against humanity. All of the Magical Girls had pledged their loyalty to the TSAB and become its enforcement arm; and as there was no longer any other power in the world that could oppose them, the nations had no choice but to recognize their authority.

But if there were those who resented the rise to power of the Magical Girls, there were countless more who praised and adulated them. They were the shining goddesses who had brought victory over the Angels, brilliant lights of hope for the rebuilding of a damaged world. Humanity had lost a lot in the Second Impact, but now it set out to rise back to its former glory. And the Magical Girls watched over the human race, guardian angels guiding and protecting the war-weary populace. Whenever a natural disaster endangered people — hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis — the girls would arrive to minimize the damage and aid those in need. With the power of magic, anything was possible.

The ten-year anniversary of the war's end and the beginning of a new age for humanity was being celebrated with a commemoration at TSAB headquarters. As someone who had participated in the War, Ryogo Fuyutsuki was of course invited as a guest of honor. In recognition of his role as Vice-Commander of NERV during the War, they had asked him to deliver the opening speech of the convention. Of course, Fuyutsuki could hardly decline such an honor. However, the advancing years had started taking their toll on the former professor; his legs hadn't fully healed from the damage inflicted by Precia that final day, and he now required the assistance of a cane to walk. In consideration of his condition, the TSAB informed him that they were prepared to provide him with assistance, including transport to and from the ceremony. Fuyutsuki accepted their offer, but requested that they deliver him to the building early. He wanted an opportunity to catch up with some of his old acquaintances.

There were several rooms set aside for the VIP guests to relax, enjoy refreshments, and mingle while waiting for their time to address the crowd. There were many faces there that he didn't recognize; while he had always considered himself to be at the center of the War, as all the Angel attacks had been targeted towards NERV headquarters in the GeoFront, there were a great many other people who had been involved in the war in one form or another who he had never had reason to meet. Great leaders and famed humanitarians, who had helped rebuild civilization in the wake of the catastrophic damage inflicted on the world during the Second Impact. Crew members from the ships that had scoured the bottom of the New Dead Sea for the Cores or dormant Angels to be transformed into Intelligent Devices. Survivors from the disastrous failed UN attack against the Angel Ramiel, which had conclusively demonstrated that the Magical Girls truly were humanity's only defense. People involved in the events following the disbanding of NERV, such as the dissolution of the UN and the formation of the TSAB. The Angel War had affected the whole world, even if Fuyutsuki had only witnessed the part of it centering around Tokyo-3.

The first familiar faces that he spotted were Ritsuko Akagi and Maya Ibuki, now members of the TSAB's scientific division.

"Doctor." Fuyutsuki said. "I'm glad to see you're doing well now. I heard you had some problems after the War."

"Yeah." Dr. Akagi admitted. "Things got real tough when the last of the LCL reserves ran out. I'm just fortunate I had Maya to help me through it. She was my lifeline."

Maya blushed and looked down.

"Please, you're giving me to much credit." Maya said. "You're a really strong person, Ryoko."

"Even so, I can't handle everything on my own." Dr. Akagi said. "It mattered, that you were there for me."

"So I take it you're together now?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"That's right." Dr. Akagi said.

Beaming, Maya raised one of her hands, showing off the diamond ring.

"It took her long enough, but in the end I finally got her to pop the question." Maya said.

"Maya's an incurable romantic." Dr. Akagi said. "I at least managed to talk her down to a small, private ceremony. As a central figure in the Angel War, it's hard enough to avoid the media circus when I'm keeping my head down and doing my job."

Fuyutsuki nodded sympathetically. The media was obsessed with details about NERV, and how it had saved the world; and in particular, Commander Precia Testarossa had become a figure of legend. She was a cold, calculating, and ruthless genius who had gone to any means necessary to preserve the existence of humanity in the face of the invading Angels. She was a madwoman, driven to insanity by the death of her daughter Alicia, who pursued the deluded hope of Alicia's resurrection until it led her to her own destruction. She was a Luciferian figure who had sought to reign over the Earth as a God using the power of Adonai. She was a tyrant, a saint, a lunatic; she was pure evil, well-intentioned but misguided, humanity's martyred savior. They were as many versions of the story as their were people who'd known the Commander.

Since Commander Testarossa had died, it was impossible for anybody to question her directly and learn the whole truth. Instead, the media swarmed everyone who had ever had close contact with her with questions about her. As Testarossa's Vice-Commander, Fuyutsuki had been near the center of that particular media circus. He understood why Dr. Akagi would want her privacy; since she had been romantically involved with Precia in the past, the reporters no doubt had a wide variety of salacious and highly personal questions regarded their relationship.

"How's your work progressing?" Fuyutsuki asked, steering the conversation away from anything that might be unpleasant for Dr. Akagi.

Dr. Akagi immediately brightened.

"It's been going very well." she said. "I think we've almost got it now."

After the end of the Angel War, all of SEELE's scientists being declared criminals, leaving Dr. Akagi as pretty much the world's foremost expert on everything related to magic and the Intelligent Devices. Once she'd recovered enough from her withdrawal to return to work, she'd been given free choice of any project she wished. She'd selected to be assigned to the medical team working on the Mass Production Magical Girls. The Evangels had been taken into custody after being knocked unconscious during their final battle against NERV's Magical Girls. However, while their Intelligent Devices had allowed them to rapidly recover from their physical injuries, their psychological status was a more significant problem. In seeking to turn young girls into perfect weapons of war, SEELE had destroyed their minds and then used the blood of Lilith to program them into mindlessly obedient engines of destruction. Dr. Akagi had become the lead scientist of the long, difficult effort to undo SEELE's conditioning and restore their original personalities. Though she had never stated her reason for choosing this as her main task, Fuyutsuki suspected that it was her way of attempting to atone for her role in creating the numerous Fate clones which Precia had abused for so long.

Fuyutsuki realized he'd fallen into a reverie and lost tract of the actual conversation, something which had been happening to him more often lately; another sign of his advancing age. He focused his attention once more.

"...it's been a long process," Maya was saying. "A lot of people gave up hope that they could ever be saved years ago. However, we've been making a lot of progress recently."

"I never doubted you." Fuyutsuki said. "Your work at NERV was without peer. I always figured you'd crack the problem eventually."

"I only wish I could take credit." Dr. Akagi said. "However, to be honest, it's mostly due to the contributions of Jail Scaglietti."

Fuyutsuki raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"I'd heard he'd finally been caught." he said. "However, I'd assumed he'd been sent to a maximum-security prison somewhere. I'd think the last place you'd want him would be back in a lab."

"I worked with Jail on the Intelligent Devices, so I know better than anyone else: he truly is a genius." Akagi said. "If there's anyone who's bright enough to figure out a way to reverse SEELE's brainwashing and restore the Evangels' original personalities, it's him."

"Also, it keeps him busy." Maya added. "If he has something interesting to work on, he's less likely to think about escaping. We're not sure we could stop him if he really wanted to; SEELE thought they had him caged pretty tight, and look what happened to them."

"Well, I'm not too concerned about the specifics, just so long as you're sure you have him under control." Fuyutsuki said. "We've just got through saving the world once, and I think I'm getting a bit old to go through all that again."

"It won't be a problem, Professor." Dr. Akagi assured him.

"That's a load off my shoulders, then."

"We should be going now." Maya said. "We're pretty busy these days — lots of things to do, people to see. Be sure to take care of yourself — I hope to see you at the twentieth anniversary commemoration as well."

Maya and Ritsuko had just stepped away when someone else called out.

"Fuyutsuki! Long time no see!"

Fuyutsuki turned to see Lindy Harlaown and Clyde coming towards him through the crowd.

"It's good to see you again too, Major." Fuyutsuki said. "And Clyde — Vice-Admiral now, isn't it?"

"Actually, the TSAB just promoted me again to full Admiral." Clyde said. "I'll be putting on the proper uniform for my speech during the ceremonies, but I try to get out of it whenever I can. It's a bit too stuffy for my tastes."

"My apologies then, Admiral." Fuyutsuki said.

"Hey, no offense taken. You can just keep calling me Clyde — we're friends, after all."

"Incidentally, is your son here?" Fuyutsuki said. "I was rather looking forward to meeting him."

"Of course we brought him; we couldn't have him missing out on the festivities, could we?" Lindy said. "Nanoha and Fate are looking after him right now, though. He looks up to them like living legends."

"That's not unusual; in a way, they rather are." Fuyutsuki said. "In any case, I was planning to check in with them, too; I can see Chrono then."

"Speaking of which, the other girls are here as well. I just saw Hayate a minute ago." Lindy said. "She was over here..."

Lindy lead the way through the crowd, Clyde helping Fuyutsuki follow in her wake, until Hayate came into view. Unlike Fuyutsuki, her recovery from her injuries had been near-total and she was able to walk without aid. Once Ritsuko had deemed it safe to draw on Reinforce's magic for healing purposes, her recovery had been speedy, though she'd still needed physical therapy due to muscle atrophy from her hospitalization. Now, however, no trace of her old injuries remained, and Fuyutsuki was pleased to see that she seemed in good spirits as she turned to greet him.

"Old man Fuyutsuki!" she said. "Wow, it's been a while."

"Hayate." Fuyutsuki said. "I'm glad to see you in good health. You haven't had any more trouble with Reinforce, have you?"

Hayate shook her head. "I haven't felt Bardiel's consciousness since that day."

"That's good." Fuyutsuki said. "I'm glad there were no lasting effects."

"Ritsuko says she doesn't think there's much danger of Bardiel waking up again." Hayate said. "The embryonic Angels were lobotimized before being turned into the Devices, so they would be subservient to us when bonded. When Iruel made contact with Reinforce, it repaired the part of Bardiel's Core that had been destroyed. That's why Bardiel was able to take over me. When Nanoha hit Bardiel with Starlight Breaker, she damaged it again, sending it back into a coma. So as long as nothing else heals it again, I shouldn't have anything to worry about."

"That's a relief." Fuyutsuki said. "The last thing we'd need is another Angel awakening after all this time."

"Hey, don't even joke about that!" Lindy said in mock horror.

"Please, give me some credit." Clyde said. "There's nothing left at the bottom of the New Dead Sea, you can be damn well certain I made sure of that."

"How are the other girls doing?" Fuyutsuki asked. "You still stay in contact with them, right?"

"Of course." Hayate said. "Actually, the four of us still live together. We spent so much time together, training at SEELE and living at NERV, that we've kind of grown inseparable."

"Like a family, right?" Fuyutsuki said.

"Well, something like that, more or less." Hayate said, blushing a bit. "Anyway, everyone's in attendance, of course. Though I think Signum is planning to hide until it's time for the ceremonies."

"She never was the social type." Lindy observed.

"As long as they're all doing well." Fuyutsuki said. "I always worried about what would become of you girls. It couldn't have been easy, fighting the way we forced you to."

"You don't have to worry about us." Hayate said. "We're strong. We were all ready for whatever the world might throw at us. And SEELE might have brought us in to start, but by the end we were all fighting for something we believed in."

"Yes... I suppose that's true." Fuyutsuki said. "I underestimated you. I suppose we all did. Everyone thought of you as just pawns in the greater game, never realizing what inner strength you possessed."

"Ah!" Hayate said. "Speaking of — Nanoha! Fate! Over here!"

Hayate jumped and waved, catching the eye of her friends. Nanoha and Fate began working their way through the crowd towards Fuyutsuki's group. They had to push through quite a large group of eager fans; the two of them had emerged as the most celebrated heroes of the Angel War. It was a bit unfair to Hayate, Signum, Shamal, and Vita, whose contributions during the war had certainly been vital; but the fact that they had initially worked for SEELE tended to taint their public image a little. And they had only arrived at NERV halfway through the war; it was Nanoha and Fate who had fought all the Angels from the very beginning.

"Fuyutsuki, wow! You're looking spry." Nanoha said.

"It's a pleasure to see you again, Vice-Commander." Fate said.

"Now, Fate, you know I don't hold any official title anymore." Fuyutsuki said. "I'm retired, you know."

"I'm aware." Fate said. "But you'll always be Vice-Commander to me."

Nanoha and Fate had grown into a pair of strong, confident, beautiful young women. Fuyutsuki could only marvel at how far they'd come since those early days, when Nanoha was an unsure child thrust into a war and Fate was a broken doll struggling to earn her mother's affections. Back in those days, Fuyutsuki hadn't believed that Fate could ever develop into the healthy, mature adult she was now. It was undoubtably thanks to Nanoha's influence that she'd been able to overcome her substantial traumas and find happiness.

"Nanoha. Fate." Fuyutsuki said. "You've certainly grown up. I'm glad to have the opportunity to see you again. I was hoping to finally meet your daughter, as well."

"Oh, Vivio's here." Nanoha said. "However, the crowd was getting a little much for her, so Makoto and Shigeru agreed to look after her and Chrono for a bit while we mingled. But I'm sure she'd like to meet you; we've told her all about you."

"Only the good things, I'd hope." Fuyutsuki said.

"I can go fetch her." Hayate offered. "I wouldn't want her to miss this opportunity."

"Thank you." Fate said. "Let's head to somewhere a little less crowded. Bring Vivio and Chrono to meet us in, let's say, conference room three."

Hayate nodded and departed. The rest of the group began to work their way through the packed main hall towards one of the smaller adjoining conference rooms.

"I'm a little surprised, though, to hear you say that you're retired." Nanoha said. "You always seemed to take your job as Vice-Commander so seriously, I figured they'd have to pry you away from your desk with a crowbar."

"Yeah!" Lindy put in. "You'll never convince me you've just been sitting on your porch in a rocking chair these past ten years. Come on, tell me what you've been up to."

"I'm retired." Fuyutsuki said firmly, then wavered. "Though... I may have put a little work into a side project, now and then."

"Do tell." Lindy said.

"I've been trying to track down the former members of SEELE." Fuyutsuki said. "I'm sure you all remember the big show trial of Lorenz Kell and some of the other big fries the TSAB investigators caught; but given how paranoid the organization was about secrecy, I'm sure a lot of the higher-ranking members were able to slink away into the shadows. I never dealt directly with the Council myself, but I had access to a lot of Precia's old files and connections, so I decided to do some investigating and see if I could dig up some of their identities."

"Have you found any of them?" Lindy asked. "Because the TSAB would be more than happy to do whatever it takes to bring them to justice — there's no statute of limitations on crimes against humanity."

"Well, it's been a bit of a mixed bag." Fuyutsuki said. "I have been able to determine the identities of quite a few of the organizations high-ranking members, including SEELE 04 — the only Council member who wasn't caught. Unfortunately, you're a bit too late to try them for their crimes. It seems that the reason the TSAB wasn't able to find them was because they committed suicide not long after the end of the War."

"Frankly, I'm not surprised." Clyde said. "SEELE planned Human Instrumentality for over a thousand years. The old men spent their whole lives preparing for it, believing that they would be the ones with the honor of finally bringing the plan to fruition, only to see everything fall apart at the last moment due to their own incompetence. I know I'd fall on my own sword if I screwed up that badly."

"I thought I heard that Adam and Lilith did actually combine to form their God, the Adonai." Lindy said.

"Their plan relied on Adam and Lilith both being at full size when They merged, so that the resultant Adonai would be a truly perfect being." Fate explained. "Since They were both in embryonic form when They joined, the result was only the size of a baby; completely useless with regard to their plans for Instrumentality. And with no way to separate the Progenitors, SEELE would never get another chance to try again."

"Incidentally," Fuyutsuki said, "whatever did happen to the fetal Adonai?"

Fate exchanged a glance with Nanoha, who subtly shook her head.

"It died." Fate said.

"Both Adam and Lilith had been severely damaged, reduced all the way down to their embryonic forms just minutes before the Forbidden Union was initiated." Nanoha said. "I guess They were just too injured to survive the shock of merging."

Just then, Hayate entered the room with two young children of around nine or ten years of age in tow. Upon seeing the group, they came came running over. One was a boy with dark hair and blue eyes; he was Chrono Harlaown, son of Lindy and Clyde. The other was a girl with blonde hair and mismatched eyes; she was Vivio Takamachi, adopted daughter of Nanoha and Fate.

"Mama! Mama!" Vivio said to Nanoha and Fate, hugging each of them in turn.

Fuyutsuki took careful note of Vivio's unusual eyes. Her left eye was red — red like the iris of Black Mother Lilith. Her right eye was green — green like the iris of White Mother Adam. Fuyutsuki slowly nodded his head.

"I understand." he said. "Yes, it's probably for that best that it died. That way, no one will ever be tempted to seek it out and abuse its power."

The loudspeakers in the room crackled, then the voice of some TSAB official spoke over them.

"Hello, and welcome to the ten-year commemoration of the end of Angel War. In a few moments, Professor Ryogo Fuyutsuki will be giving some opening remarks. First, however, we'd like to take a moment to thank all of the honored guests who traveled here to take part..."

"Well, I'd better get going." Fuyutsuki said. "I guess the rest of our chat will have to wait until after the commemoration. I hope you'll come by hotel room to continue our talk; I must confess that seeing you all again has put me in a nostalgic mood. I'd like to catch up some more, and talk a bit about old times. And I'd very much like to get to know you, little lady —" he nodded at Vivio. "I have the feeling you're an extraordinary young girl."

"We're looking forward to speaking more with you as well." Nanoha said. "And with a lot of other old friends — with all the chaos of rebuilding the world over the past ten years, we weren't able to keep in touch with everyone we wanted to. Now that all the old crew has gathered for the commemoration, we finally have the chance to meet everyone again."

"Then just let this sentimental old man give wish you well before we part for the moment." Fuyutsuki said. "I wish you all the best of luck in your future lives. May you all find happiness."

"Happiness isn't something you just find." Nanoha told him. "It's something you have to make for yourself."

"Heh." Fuyutsuki said. "With that attitude, it's no wonder you won the war. I'm sure success awaits you in the future as well."

He gave them a stiff bow, then turned and began walking towards the main auditorium. And everyone who looked at his face saw that his creased features were drawn into a contented smile.


End file.
